Tallinn and Tartu: Exploring Estonia’s culture-rich cities

Massive medieval towers, dense forests and daily saunas were what I’d come to Estonia for. What I hadn’t expected was to find a trendy food scene, tasting menus and Michelin stars. 

The Baltic country has found new fame in 2024 with the awarding of the European capital of culture to Tartu, its second city located in the southeast. 

Along with the capital Tallinn, the cities have attracted increasing numbers of tourists thanks to their progressive fusion of medieval and ultra-modern culture – something that also flavours their haute cuisine. 

But despite the visitor uptick, you’ll still be able to pop into museums without waiting in a queue and book last-minute tables in restaurants that would have a months-long waiting list in other European cities. 

Tartu: Estonia’s second city shines as European Capital of Culture

Tartu’s year as European Capital of Culture has placed the city firmly on the tourist map. The accolade has given Tartuians an international stage to exalt their richly historical city and modern achievements. 

The city is also easier to reach now after Finnair launched flights from Helsinki this year. The journey is a quick 50 minutes and bags arrive on the mini carousel of the tiny airport minutes after landing. 

Tartu centre is compact and walkable, so you can wander from the crumbling arches of the soaring medieval cathedral ruins to the brick church of St John with over 1,000 tiny terracotta figures to the ice-cream-hued main square in a morning. 

A walking tour with a certified guide like Merike Jürna will also open your eyes to Tartu’s quirkier attractions that might be overlooked alone. 

There’s the world’s highest ceilinged pub at 11 metres – named Gunpowder Cellar after its location inside the remains of the medieval castle. 

In the main square, there’s the statue of two students kissing which prompted a mass kiss as part of this year’s cultural events. While marked on the Dorpat Observatory there’s a meridian line which, in 1855, allowed Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve to calculate the size and shape of the earth. 

Each time you delve into the past in Tartu, you are just as quickly catapulted to the present. After exploring the City Museum, you can board a pint-sized self-driving shuttle bus to the Estonian National Museum. 

In this colossal building – constructed on an ex-Soviet airstrip in 2016 – historical exhibits of Uralic life, customs and dress are displayed in strikingly modern displays with animations and interactive elements. 

A 10-minute bus ride from the centre takes you to Aparaaditehas (translated as Widget Factory). Here, there was allegedly a clandestine Soviet production of military parts for rockets and submarines, my guide explains. 

The brick warehouses have been renovated into a mural-splashed hipster hangout of bars, restaurants, bookshops and craft studios. 

Tallinn: Medieval walls and virtual reality museums

Having been built in stone rather than wood, much more of Tallinn’s medieval city has survived including several towers – one particularly thick-walled one is irreverently named Fat Margaret. 

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It’s worth creaking open the heavy wooden door of the Lutheran church of the Holy Spirit for a surprisingly rich interior of painted carvings, dark wood balconies and a gilded 15th-century altarpiece. 

Cobbled lanes tucked behind the main square hide craft workshops of blown glass, knitwear and leather goods.  

But like Tartu, history and modernity exist in constant symbiosis. 

In the Seaplane Harbour Museum, housed in a vast concrete domed hangar, you can descend inside a submarine, experience the rocky seas of a rescue boat and drive a virtual seaplane. 

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A few minutes walk away is the PROTO Invention Factory where virtual reality headsets let you navigate a hot air balloon, have a shoot out or drive along a racetrack. 

Estonia’s burgeoning Michelin food scene

Like its interior design – whose muted colours, natural fabric and clean aesthetic could be mistaken for Scandinavian – Estonia’s emerging cuisine is refined and modish. 

A two and a half hour bus or train journey takes you from Tartu to the capital Tallinn. If you’re travelling by car – which takes around two hours – you can stop just outside of the city for a gourmet meal at Restoran Fii. 

The tasting menu includes salted perch from Lake Peipus, beef tartar with wild garlic and lamb tenderloin with smoked swede. 

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In the capital, there are three starred establishments and 25 recommended in the guide. 

The prettiest location is Mon Repos located in a restored 19th-century beach club on the edge of the palace-studded Kadriorg park. The lilac wooden building has arched windows with stained glass detailing that let light pour into the pale wood and cream interior. 

As elsewhere in Estonia, the menu is a fusion of old and new. Chef Erik Prosvirin has revived ancient recipes from Russian, French and Italian cookbooks along with new dishes of his own invention. 

I try delicately sliced veal in a cream tuna sauce, paprika-spiced calamari rings and succulent duck with truffle mash. 

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Like the Widget Factory in Tartu, Tallinn has several regenerated industrial areas. In the Rotermann district, beige stone mills and storehouses have bold glass additions and now house design shops, cafès and restaurants. 

Pull is Michelin recommended and specialises in charcoal grilled meat like Angus marble steak and beef ribs. 

In another revived industrial zone, Telliskivi Creative City, Fotografiska is the country’s only Green Michelin-starred eatery – awarding dedication to sustainability. 

The mouth-fizzing appetiser of the eight-course tasting menu is a brightly acidic red cabbage gazpacho. Then comes a breadbasket with treacly rye and a dish of sweet heritage tomatoes with a garlic confit.

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The beef tartar has a rich cream sauce made of pecorella cheese from a farm in the country’s south while the tempura vegetables are light, crisp and enlivened with paprika.

Chef Peeter Pihel displays his inventiveness during the dessert course with a chocolate mousse containing no chocolate. Instead, a mixture of locust bean flour, roasted chicory, chokeberry powder and malt syrup mimic the cocoa flavour almost indistinguishably. 

Upon leaving from the quiet, neat airport of Tallinn, Kadri Koor from Visit Estonia asks me what I’ll take away from my trip. A desire to return, I say, and a couple of extra kilos.  

Rebecca Ann Hughes was a guest of Finnair. 

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Finnair flights from Helsinki to Tallinn operate up to 10 times daily, and there are up to twice daily services from Helsinki to Tartu. Finnair is the only airline to offer year-round flights to Tartu Airport.