Where to eat
in Zelenogradsk? Balt

Zelenogradsk is a calm, cosy town on the Baltic coast that is good in any weather. The resort is famous for its parks and green squares, German-style houses and museums, its promenade and sandy beaches. Souvenir shops and stalls, coffee shops and restaurants line the paved streets. And after long walks around the town, visitors often ask: where to eat in Zelenogradsk?

Restaurant “Balt” is on Kurortny Prospekt, in the very centre of the town, “where there are lots of wild monkeys”, on a pedestrian street that the local cats have also made their own and that have become a full-fledged attraction.

The restaurant occupies the ground floor of the restored historic Kurhaus Kranz hotel building. An ornately decorated entrance and a large open-air terrace with umbrellas, where you can sit comfortably on a hot day and take shelter from the rain. It is simply impossible to walk past this place.

Kurhaus literally translates as “resort house”. That is what the main hotels at the centre of resort life were called in Germany. The building combined a hotel, a restaurant, a reading room, a billiard room and a games room.

There is one important thing — it is better to book a table in good time, even several days before the desired date. So we do not put this off and take matters into our own hands. A restaurant employee asked on the phone about the details and offered to choose a hall for the visit. I recommend, if you are visiting for the first time, sitting either in the hall by the open kitchen or in the far one with stained-glass windows.

In the lobby you are met by the administrator, who walks you to your table. Light chalky textured walls, exposed roof rafters and beams, tabletops with an emphasised wood grain, stone cutlery and napkin holders, concrete columns and massive counter and bar tabletops, wooden compositions and ceramic tableware in natural colours. Soft, natural colour schemes in the interior and décor. The setting is completed by linen textiles: curtains on the windows and as an element of zoning. On the tables are vases with seasonal flowers.

There were many guests, almost a full house — and on a weekday. But the staff handle their tasks very well: they know the menu perfectly, can recommend a dish, tell you about the details of the cooking, and the wait for the main order is not long.

Restaurant “Balt” serves local seasonal cuisine. The main ingredients are local fish and game. Most items are cooked over an open fire: in a wood-fired oven and on the grill. It is one of the few restaurants in the region that boasts its own cheese dairy. Now it makes soft, young cheeses: stracciatella, burrata, brynza, halloumi, suluguni and ricotta, all of which are on the restaurant’s menu. So we did not pass these delicacies by. Curonian flatbreads from the wood-fired oven with stracciatella and fried tomatoes, and burrata with tomatoes and strawberries.

The elongated flatbreads are baked in the open kitchen, cut into four pieces and brought to the guest on wooden serving boards. A hot starter with a crispy crust, the most delicate cheese and sun-dried fried tomatoes simply melts in your mouth.

Burrata with ripe tomatoes and fresh strawberries. The dish is decorated with thin shavings of caramelised beetroot. The creamy, delicate taste of the cheese and juicy tomatoes combined with the sour berry make an original combination. When cut, the creamy filling of the cheese flows out and brings the flavours together.

The signature Balt cutlet is juicy minced salmon and pike-perch on a bed of mashed potatoes with a creamy sauce and sprouted greens. Fried to a golden crust — a dish of delicate, simple taste.

Among drinks — the signature berry tea with cherry, cinnamon and blackcurrant leaf.
A hot, vitamin-rich drink, with a rich, tart shade and a touch of sourness. The restaurant is famous for its tea blends, and the emphasis was on wild-gathered plants, which the whole team collects: from flowers to fruits. They are dried, fermented and frozen a year ahead.

A rich bar menu of spirits, wines and beers from local breweries as well as imported varieties. So if you want to celebrate an occasion or just have a cocktail, you will find an interesting option.

And of course I did not skip dessert — Pavlova. It is a combination of crisp meringue on the outside and a creamy, sweet cushion of cream with berries. The flavours intertwine and leave a sweet aftertaste.

Dinner here cost me almost 3,000 roubles.

I was left with a pleasant impression of the visit to the restaurant Balt, as always — a restrained and cosy evening atmosphere: light background music and soft lighting, superb dishes and polished work from the staff.

It is a good place to relax with close friends — to enjoy the company, excellent food and a walk by the Baltic Sea.