A street food restaurant with a warm feeling of nostalgia
Text Mark Taylor Photo Andrei Chertkov
Pelmen’s old town restaurant has a retro soviet time feel.
If there could be one short story that encapsulates the food and emotion behind blossoming street food café chain Pelmen, it would be this from a former 75 year old diner: “When I was little and I lived in Siberia, my grandmother made the same pelmeni that I tasted today,” reminisced Artur Tamme, the general manager at Pelmen.
This story in just a few words explains how Pelmen have gone from selling their handmade dumplings online in 2019, to having four café locations around Tallinn by the end of 2023. All of this despite the coronavirus pandemic and the following economic crisis.
So what is behind this success? For locals it is a taste of their childhood, and for visitors a chance to try something they likely haven’t tasted before. Something echoed by Tamme who explained that “only about 50 per cent of Finnish tourists know about Pelmeni”.
There are six different flavours of dumplings on the menu at Pelmen. The first two of which (Pork and beef, and potato and onion) were the classically available options during soviet times. The remaining four (salmon and shrimp, duck and thyme, chicken and shrimp, and lamb and garlic), are what Tamme describes as having “the taste and soul of today”.
However, pelmeni aren’t the only tasty local treats you will find on the menu. You will find traditional soups such as borch and seljanka, as well as other options like potato pancakes, and retro waffles. The latter made from soviet time machines that you just cannot buy new today.
It isn’t just the tasty food made of 90% local ingredients that has seen the blossoming street food chain ranked the 34th best restaurant in Tallinn on TripAdvisor. It is the quality of the service received and the cafés themselves. At their location in Tallinn’s old town, we saw that not only were the customers (Estonians, Russian, British, Germans, and Finns) all treated like friends, but the café itself was a time warp to the past filled with all kinds of knick-knacks from soviet times, from bikes and carpets on the walls, to little sugar tins.
In addition, as Tamme explains, “a coffee and a cake can cost you 10 euros in Tallinn today. However, at Pelmen you can have a full meal and a drink for this.”
On the Pelmen website you will not just find the full menu, details about the four restaurant locations (old town, T1 Mall, Balti Jaama Market, Viru Keskus), and opening times (which are all 7 days a week). You will also find an e-shop where you can buy their products and have them delivered to you at home.
Pelmen Locations:
Old Town – Vana-Viru 4 Tallinn
T1 Mall – Peterburi Tee 2, Tallinn
Balti Jaama Market – Kopli 1 Tallinn
Viru Keskus – Viru Väljak 4-6, Tallinn
To learn more about this and similar topics
Balti Jaama
Dumplings
Pelmen
Pelmeni
Street Food
T1 Mall
Tallinn
