Vilnius Restaurants
 

Can anyone recommend good restaurants in Vilnius which might be open over New Year? Prefer fish to meat though so not too many odd bits of meat!

Have looked at In Your Pocket and some guidebooks but they don't say when the restaurants might be closed and it'dd be useful to hear personal recommendations.

Thanks.

Many of the restaurants in Vilnius will be open over New Year, but equally most of those that are open would have parties and/or would require to buy a ticket (usually redeemable towards your food & drink spending).

This is because few places wish to stay open on an off-chance that someone may wonder in.

Except for the most trendy nightclubs, New Year night tickets are usually still available on 31 December. You can pick up a newspaper on 30th or 31st and there will be many places desperate for your custom (sometimes slashing their last-minute prices).

To help you more - what's your budget, approximately? When are you arriving in Vilnius?

Thanks for this advice so far. I've been away for a couple of days so haven't got back to my PC until this evening.

We arrive in Vilnius on the 29th so it sounds as though we can look around that evening and then possibly decide. We don't mind spending around £50 per person or so if it's somewhere nice. Is that quite a reasonable budget for a meal there?

Thanks for your help.

Definitely, you would be looking at medium-to-high end place with this money (of course, with liberally ordered drinks the sky is the limit, but you would definitely have a good time in an upmarket place).

Whatever you do, I would discourage from going to "Prie Parlamento / Ministerija", however many recommendations you receive from your local contacts. It is a moderately trendy middle-of-the-road expat place imitating an English/Irish pub and serves average meals to people who don't know any better. It is very central on Gedimino Avenue but it is totally charm free (unless you want to see a few model-shaped Lithuanian girls desperate to meet a foreign sugar daddy).

For the New Year, if you can get a reservation, try Tores Wine Cellar (Tores Vyno Rusys). It is named after a Spanish wine brand and only part of it is a cellar - don't let this discourage you. The food is international with some good local choices, and pricing is reasonable.

Among the restaurants, Tores has possibly the best view of Vilnius Old Town and few people in Vilnius (except a few millionaires in ultra-expensive apartments in Teatro Street) will have a better vista for fireworks at midnight. Snow-covered terracota tile roofs of the medieval Old Town and illuminated church spires - you will see it all from the terrace.

You can find the restaurant (Lithuanian website only) at www.tores.lt (check out animated view of their terrace http://www.tores.lt/Default.aspx?tabid=1743).

Contact: Uzupio Street 40, LT-01203, Vilnius Tel. +370 5 262 9309. You may wish to try contacting them in advance, or ask your Vilnius contacts or your hotel to reserve the place for you in the unlikely event their English is inadequate for making a booking.

I'll let you know if I can think of any other recommendations.

Thanks, will give this one a try.

i was there 2 weeks ago
in old town
down the street from the Radisson (maybe 30 yards)
on the right hand side is a club/disco which is only open on the weekends
above that club are 2 restuarants

one is Japanese/sushi bar - it was ok

beside that is a sophisticated steak place which i thought was fantastic
i didnt get there till midnight, and i was the last customer
as i was leaving, the owner called me over
and i did shots with the wait staff for free

if you walk further into old town, still on the right hand side
i found 2 decent pizza places
- be careful, they bring you a bottle of ketsup with your pizza

bring a winter coat
and a thick one
the cold almost tore through my leather jacket, and that was 2 weeks ago

Was the steak place Marcus & Co? One which looks like anyone's rich uncle's study - green walls and nice leather. They know how to make a good steak.

Pizza places are usually not bad (Cili Pica is omnipresent and is a good choice), but their menus are far too long and creative. Best to order somethig between numbers 1 and 15 - anything further and you risk ordering a pie that the people in the kitchen are making for the first time in their life.

Vilnius can be bitterly cold, this is true.

yes
thats the place
i'm willing to go back just to eat there for week

note
the pizzas are not perfectly round like at pizza hut
but are hand made
i ordered something off the menu but asked them to not put on olives
and it came out ok
i think a pizza and a soda came to less than $20 lita (2.6 litas/us dollar)