BEGINNING.
The restaurant’s owners, a couple, Ingryda ir Ignas, are originally from Vilnius. However, because of their dream they left the capital (by the way, Ingryda’s husband left a logistics business) and moved to Palanga, where they received a good opportunity to open a restaurant in the hotel premises. They received the first foundations from a well-known chef Deivydas Praspaliauskas, who used to be their neighbour in Vilnius. He encouraged them, gave them a lot of pieces of important advice, directly contributed to the creation and launch of the menu as well as counselled them up until this summer.
CHEF.
Bernardas is probably the youngest chef of the project “30 Best Restaurants” this year, however, he already has enough experience and is especially open. He started working in the kitchen at the age of 16, his jobs in Spain were culinary-related and, while there, he was captivated by the chef’s profession, and while working in Vilnius he was fully engrossed in this area. Soon he left on a traineeship to Great Britain until he finally returned to his native Palanga. Last year, Bernardas took the second place at the Young Cooks of Lithuania competition, and was just a little behind the winner. It is hard to believe that currently Bernardas is just 25 years of age. By the way, he often brings a dish to visitors himself or comes to a dining room to communicate with customers. Owners Ingryda and Ignas can also be always found in the dining room.
MENU.
D. Praspaliauskas helped Bernardas to create the restaurant’s menu, while now the young chef creates dishes himself. The menu here changes four times a year together with the seasons.
DINNER.
The restaurant’s menu brings special joy to fish lovers, vegetarians and even vegans. The menu of this summer includes a lot of vegetables, berries, cereals as well as fish and seafood. Certainly, meat lovers also have a few excellent choices here. One of them is a beef steak, and beef is matured in a dry manner for 1 to 2 months for that.
By the way, you will not find many luxurious ingredients here. On the contrary, Onorė creates extraordinary dishes from simple products, and probably you will not find such dishes anywhere else in Palanga. This summer’s menu highlights such ingredients as mushrooms, berries and nuts. This is one of the few catering establishments in Palanga where the menu is based on healthy and balanced food.
On working days – sometimes, and on week-ends – always, the restaurant has special chef’s offers which you will not find on the menu, but the staff of the restaurant, which is very friendly, will tell you about them. Most often these are dishes depending on the supply of micro-seasonal goods.
The kitchen prepares everything on the spot – from bread, which is baked here, to sauces and broths. They use very little additional ingredients: salt, pepper, fresh potherbs and quality oil.
By the way, this restaurant is also children-friendly (there is even a space for playing) and has a separate children’s menu. It has been assessed and selected by the owners’ daughter. The children’s menu includes tested and reliable dishes: roasted chicken with vegetables and potatoes, fiocchi with ricotta and pears, etc.
WINE LIST.
Picky diners will find everything here: from classical options to the tested sorts of wine of the New World. By the way, during summer, Onorė offers at least three sorts of champagne sold by glass. The restaurant also has a selection of whisky which is a little wider than usual (from Sweden and Taiwan to the usual options of Scottish whisky).
NAME.
While Ingryda and Ignas still lived in Vilnius, they liked to visit the restaurant Balzac on Savičius Street. They were curious why the owners had not called the restaurant after the writer’s first name, but had chosen his surname. When they wanted to open their own restaurant, they remembered that fact and explored the meaning of the name Onorė. It turned out to mean “the one who is always good”. This idea suited them perfectly. Besides, the restaurant’s logo uses an apostrophe (the name is written in the original French language), which looks like a sprout, while freshness, a lot of greenery and return to nature are especially important features in creating the dishes of Onorė.
