Restaurant "Old Traditions" — Restaurant in Riga

The restaurant “Old Traditions” in Riga is rightfully my favorite Russian restaurant in the city. I often visit it with my family and friends, and I especially love bringing my friends from abroad here who want to experience Russian culture.

Everything here is top-notch – the interior, the location, all the cute Russian decor (their wall Matryoshkas 🪆 and bear 🐻 is like a true art museum for me :)), the service, and, of course, the restaurant’s menu, which offers incredibly delicious dishes from Russian cuisine, from the most traditional to the most unusual, even for Russians. :))

Just recently, we celebrated my mom’s birthday with the whole family, and Natasha, our waitress, made this day truly special. Her professionalism, kindness, and generous compliments turned an ordinary weekday into a real celebration. But what touched us most was when she brought out the birthday cake with a candle and made such sincere and heartwarming wishes to my mom, which brought tears to the eyes of our whole family (even those who usually don’t cry :))). It felt like she was part of our family – it was soooooo sweet! 🩵✨🙏🏻

That’s why, for me, “Old Traditions” is not just a restaurant, but a true corner of Russian culture, where every guest feels at home, and the true breadth of the Russian soul is passed on, just as it was for us with Natasha and her...

To be honest I haven't been in Old Riga for long time and haven't had a clue about what is good. My choice to go to this restaurant was menu as few gardens around had very boring menu. Firstly, of course, I love Russian food. Here is Russian food with bit of modern twist. And I kind of like it.

Service was very good even with head chef coming out of kitchen and also complimenting us. For me it is a sigh of good service. Also waiters were very good, discreet and always at a place.

I personally ordered steak. For me it's always a fear- will it be exactly how it should be and would it be the right cut of steak. I wasn't disappointed. I truly enjoyed my steak with homemade pie. As of my background I wasn't able to get a good steak for over 2 years due to circumstances and it was important to me not to be disappointed.

That little complimentary drink was awesome- hard to explain, but thing to remember if you know what is horseradish.

It was also a celebration to take my mum out. Thank you team for a very...

We really wanted to like this place having booked it to meet a Latvian friend, but this was a poor experience from start to finish. When we arrived no one was there to greet us…we just found a table (despite having booked). We were then told we would have at least a 40 minute wait for any food as there was a large group…why accept our booking if they know they had a large group of 20+ for this time. If you know there is a long wait for food then at least the waiting staff could be prompt with some drinks…we waited ages for those and had to go and ask in order to remind them of the order. The wait would all have been ok if the food was great, but this was transport cafe food at best. Bland, lacking innovation (sticking a cheese and onion crisp in cold mashed potato is not culinary innovation!), and poor quality ingredients. No one asked us about our meal, thanked us for coming or even said goodbye. A cold, sterile and disappointing experience. Hopefully their big group had a...