If you are interested in the cuisine of the Mediterranean Sea region in Vilnius, one of the reliable choices would be Ti’ana. This is a debut of this restaurant in the project “30 Best Restaurants”.
The owner of the restaurant, who lives in Monaco, entrusted the creation and implementation of the concept of the place to Renatas Jauniškis, who has more than 20 years of experience in this area. He undertook the challenge of Ti’ana together with chef Jaroslavas Girdzijevskis after they both left IDW Esperanza Resort.
The freedom for creation that they were given inspired the men to open a restaurant of the Mediterranean Sea region cuisine while leaving a lot of space for improvisation. Such freedom enables a full adaptation to the customers’ wishes. And this place has quite a lot of regular customers indeed. One of the reasons for that – the place is open 7 days a week from midday to midnight all the year round. And people like stability, however, certainly, this is not the main reason for liking Ti’ana...
MENU.
Renatas and chef Jaroslavas create the restaurant’s menu together. Since the kitchen of this restaurant, which is located at the heart of the Old Town of Vilnius, is quite small, they needed to elaborate the menu and specialise in a specific area without expanding too much. That was how the menu was born and it includes several striking strengths of the restaurant: offers of raw fish, meat and seafood as well as mostly dishes of marine products cooked on a grill/a stove.
The most popular dishes here include marine choices: Sicilian-style octopus, scallop in a bearnaise sauce, 5th-taste umami oysters from Ireland with classical flavourings, risotto served with crab meat in a crab shell, fried scallop, etc. Customers also return to Ti’ana because of the special Tuscany-style thick fish soup with seafood.
And even though it is inevitable that the cuisine of the Mediterranean Sea region focuses on marine products, meat lovers here also have a few good choices of dishes made of Dutch veal, Irish lamb or black angus served with truffles, etc. And the lovers of meat tartares prefer a beef tartare here. However, tartares prepared in Ti’ana are worthy of a separate paragraph.
THE STRENGTH – TARTARES.
The chosen priority of the restaurant – the tastes of the Mediterranean Sea – at once prompted a possibility of a raw bar. In this manner, tartares and other dishes of raw fish, seafood and meat became an integral part of the menu here. It is even possible to state that this is the strength of this place. Each tartare is sophisticated and perfectly balanced. While the interesting part lies in the fact that it is cooked at the customer’s table. By the way, Renatas mixes them himself.
The menu always includes at least 6-7 choices of fish tartares (from scallop and wild salmon to mahi mahi, etc.) and at least 2 meat tartares (a black angus cut, an Irish lamb fillet...). The selection changes together with the seasons.
DESSERTS.
Ti’ana is a place where you do not necessarily have to have lunch or dinner. The restaurant is located at the heart of the Old Town, so having a coffee with a dessert here can be a pleasant experience. And even though the menu includes probably the most popular desserts in Europe – tiramisu, panna cotta, creme brulee, fondant au chocolat, etc. – every one of them is somewhat unique here. For instance, creme brulee is prepared with Bailey’s. By the way, the kitchen can give more attention and time when preparing desserts than, say, a coffee-shop in the Old Town of Rome, where customer flows are much more intense, therefore, quite often the taste of desserts here surpasses authentic desserts from Southern Europe.
SPACE.
Quite a while ago, this building housed a university library. Later on, for many years, Lithuanian Jews lived there, while the last 15 years before the opening of Ti’ana the windows of the building were hammered down. Having leased the premises, the restaurant’s owner refurbished them. Now, the restaurant’s interior is clear, light and low-key, therefore, it somewhat reminds us of the home environment.
WINE LIST.
Ti’ana introduces itself as the embassy of champagne. Here, they always sell by glass at least 5 sorts of champagne, while they sell by bottle over 20 different sorts of this luxurious bubbly beverage. The wine list mostly includes wines from the regions of France, Spain and Italy. Certainly, since this place focuses on fish dishes, the choice of white wines is more extensive. Renatas will advise you what to drink alongside one or another dish.
INTERESTING.
This is not the first restaurant on this list of thirty which has a cat spoilt by attention and gourmet dishes. In the back yard of Ti’ana, lives Bonifacijus which was taken from a shelter by the owner following disappearance of a handsome cat which used to live here before. Bonifacijus’ fur is caramel in colour and shines from afar. And it is no surprise if we know that his daily diet includes tuna and scallop and that, since his move here, he has never tasted dry cat food.
