Latvian Food Tasting Tour at Riga Central Market

19 reviews

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20 EUR

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Curious about Latvian food? Forget potatoes and sour cabbage – Riga Central Market has much more to offer! Sample a wide range of Latvian specialities and get closer to the stomach of the city on a mouthwatering tasting tour with a local food lover.

Duration: 2 hours

Available in

English

Highlights

Navigate Riga’s impressive Central Market with a local food lover
Sample a wide range of delicious and unusual Latvian specialities
Get insider tips on where and what to eat during the rest of your stay

Description

Discover Riga Central Market with a local food lover as your guide! You’ll get to taste a range of local delicacies, from hemp butter, smoked meats, and pickled vegetables to fine Latvian breads, seasonal specialities, and more. Everything is of high quality and many of the products are unique to the region.

Besides introducing you to Latvian cuisine, your guide will tell you about the history of the Central Market and share tips on where and what to eat during the rest of your stay.

What’s included & not included

Friendly and professional guide
Food samples

Meeting point

Riga Explorers Club

Reviews from travellers (19)

4.7/5

Foodtour

Was fun. Very nice sparkling girl. Loads of history. Top bad we couldn't taste some more of the local food.

Reviewed by Tamara • October 13, 2018

Great tour

We were a party of 4, first time in Riga, and found the tour to be very enjoyable. Agnes had a wealth of knowledge and a great sense of humour. We found the tour to be interesting and were glad we took part. It was good to hear all the history behind the Central Market and the history of the Latvian people and their relationship with food. Would recommend this tour, especially for those first time visitors.

Reviewed by Sandra • October 05, 2018

Great tour in tha malls

Past and present melted together as we walked trough the central marked. The guide gave us a lot of interesting bonus information. And we tastes some of the specialities at the end.
We can warmly recommand the Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central Market.

Reviewed by Henning • August 27, 2018

James Eldrige was a really fun guide. Loved his jokes and lokal knowledge

Reviewed by Kirsten • July 22, 2018

Great Experience to discover Riga

I had an amazing tour with a very nice guide.
Helped me understand Latvian culture and customs to better enjoy my stay.
Definitely something i would suggest doing on your first/ second day in Riga, as it will change the way you see the city.
Thanks Again!

Reviewed by Sara • July 20, 2018

Exceptional interesting, funny, tasty

Our guide was very authentic, knew a lot about the city and the history of Latvia. With his funny character the two hours went by quickly. The served food included a good selection of regional specialties. We highly recommend this tour and would book a tour again!

Reviewed by Carolin D / Tripadvisor • June 25, 2018

Food tasting tour

We are very pleased whith the food tasting tour at Central Market in Riga. We received a very nice response and will recommend this
event.
Sincerly
Per Gustafsson and Birgitta Kleirud

Reviewed by Per • November 05, 2017

Super rundvisning:o)

Vi havde booket turen i håb om at få lidt mere viden om markedets historie og hvilke om hvad de spiser i Letland.
Agnes var vores guide og hun var super sød og god til at fortælle om historie og national spisen og drikkelsen. Vi sluttede af med en mindre med udsøgt buffet af mad og drikke. bestemt en anbefalelsesværdig tur. Mvh. Peter

Reviewed by Peter • September 22, 2017

Very interesting and informative tour

Reviewed by Sandra • August 20, 2017

Fantastic tour and knowledgable guide

Myself and my girlfriend did this tour to experience a more local side of Riga and also to taste some of the local foods. On both counts were were not dissappointed. We met our guide and was taken on a tour of the Central Market where he explained what each pavillion was for and some of the History behind it. Also pointed out local foods and what to watch out for if we were shopping their ourselves. We then got to sample some of the tranitional local foods such as venison, picked cabbage and cheeses. All in all it was an informative and delicious tour! Highly recommended

Reviewed by Dave • August 03, 2017

Tasty

James gave us a tour around the market, showing us the local produce. He pointed out where to get the good local stuff and what to avoid. He shared his view on some of the production methods, which seemed superfluous to me. The tasting afterwards was really nice with good quality products and a more than sufficient explanation. If you re looking for an informal yet educational tour, book James. He ll tell you where to buy the best non in town.

Reviewed by Sylvie • July 21, 2017

friendly guide

Agnes was really friendly, helpful and a good guide. I think we hoped for more of a food expert - and that not her thing - good overview, but not expertise. The restaurant at the end, where we did the food tasting, was soulless (hip, cool but no character) and the food rather dull after the exotic and colourful things we had seen in the Central Market.

Reviewed by sophy • May 09, 2017

Nice tour with great guide

We had a Lovely day with a great guide. We saw the market halls and were able to have a taste of various food,

Reviewed by Åsa • April 18, 2017

The tour is highly recommended!

The tour starting point was easy to find and once we got there we were met by our tour guide - Agnes.

It was a short stroll to the impressive market halls.
Agnes showed us round them all and pointed out things that we would never have noticed on our own.
From the fresh fruit and veg, to the dairy products, meat market and the fish market.
All the local specialities were pointed out and explained to us.
We then had a small beer tasting with locally brewed beers. It was so good we had to buy some more to drink. The ginger and mint beer was very tasty.
Then it was over to the Creative Quarter to a small cafe where some local delicacies were waiting for us to try - a rye bread drink, some pastries, various types of sausage, some pickles, and a special type of butter. Just enough to give us a taste of Latvia.
Agnes was a brilliant guide. She didn't mind answering all our questions and we enjoyed listening to her describing life in Riga.
After we sadly said goodbye to Agnes we headed back into the market, armed with all our knowledge, to make some purchases.

The tour is highly recommended. A big Thank You to Agnes our brilliant tour guide - Paldies !!

Reviewed by Gordon • April 14, 2016

Our guide was friendly, professional, knowledgeable, kind and gave us exactly what we had hoped for. Thank you so much.

Reviewed by Matthew • June 04, 2015

The tour was very good. James was our guide and he was very knowledge and added in some extra historical information throughout the tour. Good combo of breakfast food, bread, cheese, drink, meat, and pickles. The 48 hour pickles were awesome; so refreshing! Definitely suggest this tour for others!!

Reviewed by Jessica C • April 07, 2015

I would recommend EAT Riga to anyone who does not just want to know the history of the city but the culture and food as well. We visited with Arthur interesting places and in addition we tried traditional Latvian food. Wonderful opportunity of visiting the local market and try delicacies. After seeing the market we had small picnic with Arthur where we could find out more about Latvia. Thank you for a great tour!

Reviewed by Agata W / TripAdvisor • January 08, 2015

My husband and I had the pleasure of doing a personalized, combined "Alternative & Food Tour" with James. James was our initial POC via email and was great in his responses, as well as timely. He was very accomodating to our limited time in Riga. James was also more than willing to tailor our tour to our wants/needs, prior to the date of our tour as well as while we were on the tour.

We really enjoyed the casual vibe of our tour. Meaning, there was no rush throughout the day to get to the next sight. We were able to truly experience and enjoy Riga in a more "local" way. The local food & drink we tasted were really good and perhaps not something we would have ordered on our own. James was really great and even walked us to a few of his favorite restaurants and made us some reservations for the rest of our time in Riga.

I would certainly recommend this company to others, especially people that enjoy getting off "the beaten path". Thank you James!

Reviewed by mpbrodriguez2 / TripAdvisor • December 19, 2014

Being a total foodie myself, I googled "food" and "Riga", when I was going to the latvian capital for a meeting. EAT Riga turned up, sounded great - and I booked a tour to the Central Market for me and my collegue.
Our guide was Marcus, an australian who by now has been living seven years in Riga, and it was great to be able to ask all sorts of questions....I mean, some questions like "can I drink the tapwater?", "are people very religious in Latvia?" or "what on eath is THAT?!!" might be offensive to a proud homie, but maybe not so to a foreigner.
So Marcus told us about everyday life, food, midsummerparties, christmas, gardening, tapwater etc. It was GREAT.
We walked through three of the big halls at the Central Market, taking photos, asking stupid questions, listening to the tale about the history of the place, tasting, looking, smelling. Obviuosly Marcus' latvian was good enough to make the stallowners smile - and sufficient to buy little bits and pieces. I was impressed.
We ended the tour by the river, where we had lunch - two kinds of meat, two kinds of cheese, two kinds of bread and pickled vegetables. And on our way home, Marcus bought us a sweet treat made of cottagecheese and chocolate.
25 euro per person for a tour like this (two and a half hour approx.) is a bargain.

Reviewed by mettegrith / TripAdvisor • November 14, 2014

From 20 EUR per person

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