Noa's Premium Menu Wins This Year's Best Restaurant Award
The 50 Best Restaurants list was announced by Flavors of Estonia on Wednesday, and the award for the best restaurant went to Noa - specifically, to the special tasting menu at this Tallinn waterfront restaurant.
Noa was followed by Alexander, winner of the award the last four years, which is located at the picturesque Pädaste manor on Muhu island, Tallinn's "highest" restaurant, Horisont, at the top of Swissotel Tallinn, and Telegraaf Hotel's Restaurant Tschaikovsky. Casual dining restaurant in Põhjaka Manor, in central Estonia, placed fifth.
Tallink Hotels special award for the best drinking experience was snatched up by Ribe, and Dansukker's special award for best puddings went to Tchaikovsky.
"Our cuisine is an increasing motivator for people to visit Estonia. There is plenty of information about different restaurants and people go out for dinner with very specific expectations. A dining experience is made up of food, drinks, service and the ambience. None of those is more or less important than the rest. It is therefore all the more symbolic that the winner was decided not by the quality of the food but by the marks for the other three criteria," said Aivar Hanson of Flavors of Estonia.
This year's top 50 list of best restaurants was the seventh in a row.
The 50 best restaurants were chosen from approximately 1,300 initial candidates. These were then judged by the members of a panel that included 30 food critics from Estonia and abroad. Marks were awarded according to the Swedish White Guide standard.
Flavors of Estonia is a program that was launched in 2008 to support the development of culinary skills and introduce Estonia as a land of good food.