Laivas - Jurmala

Visited yesterday, 1 September 2021. The only nice thing to say about that restaurant was the location: overlooking the river. Ordinary soup. In our opinion if anyone decided to make it at home, the result would be better. The avocado salad consisted of chopped avocado and tomatoes. No dressing, no even salt or anything. Nothing, absolutely nothing. For the main course we ordered black pasta with salmon. Instead it was a pasta soaked in strange sauce, obviously not home made. And the pasta itself wasn’t Italian. It was like short cuts of local factory made pasta. On top of that we could trace a smell of chlorine obviously coming from defrosted pieces of salmon. When I pointed that we ordered BLACK pasta with seafood, a brazen waitress casually said, we are short of black pasta. I forgot to tell you. No apologies, no regrets. It was disgusting. The food, the attitude. On top of everything, it was heavily overpriced. I refused to eat that pasta. To be honest, I’ve never came across that kind of attitude to the customers in Jurmala. This restaurant should be called canteen, but even some canteens in the world offer much better and tastier food. I wouldn’t advise anyone to eat there. Plenty of other restaurants in lovely Jurmala. Money thrown into the wind and spoiled mood for the rest of the day.

We came to Jurmala for the week-end and decided to investigate the local food scene outside of the large hotel in which we were staying. I browsed this website and found Laivas. The menu looked interesting, so, here we went. On this saturday night, the place was busy, but we were seated on time and were attended to by excellent waiters. It is always a good sign when one has to hesitate between the choices available, but it is even better when the chosen dishes surpass your expectations from their description. This was the case for every single dish at Laivas. The recipes are clearly New Latvian in spirit, but the Chef adds a little spin here and there that make the dish interesting to see, and superb to the palate. The wines were also of character and reasonably price. It is needless to say that we will be back on our future trips to the beach.

The interior of this restaurant is beautiful. Staff- super lovely and helpful. Food- very yummy. I did expect a bit more to choose from, but at the same time, it was enough and we all enjoyed it. Few of the cocktails are a bit overpriced, but not a big surprise, as the Jurmala (location/area) is classed as one of the most expensive in Latvia. There is a playroom upstairs (not part of the restaurant) where you can leave the kids, while you enjoy the meal in peace. But be careful for how long you leave them there, as it is 6 euros for 30min. And don't let them come in and out all the time, as every time they leave and come back again- it is counted as a new hour, even if the first time they stayed for only 20min. No one told us, so imagine the surprise when the bill was over 50 euros for 3h. All that aside, a great place to brunch.

Amazing lamb chops, chocolate fondant, beef carpaccio. They have a huge amd incredible playground for the kids on the second floor, where they are watched by an adult. Wine offerred by sommelier was really good. We also received an incredible drawing of our family by some artist, which was a huge and very lovely surprise. To sum up that was a wonderful evening.

Lovely view on the river Very busy place on weekends Rather expensive, overpriced The food was good, but not what it used to be Slow service