A Whole Month of Shrove Bun Festivities in Tallinn

Text Timo Raussi
Photo Rea Kõiv, visittallinn.ee

Last year, KukliFest, the Shrovetide Bun Festival, created by Tallinn’s tourism and café scene, was an obvious success. This year, the indulgence campaign is being held for the second time, and will last nearly five weeks, from 15 January to 17 February. Almost 50 cafés and patisseries are taking part, offering a total of over 120 different bun variations. Some of the participating cafés have multiple locations across the city: Reval Café has as many as ten, Gustav Café three, and Karjase Sail, Põhjala Deli, and Pelgu Pagar each have two.

For a long time, the traditional Shrove bun in Estonia was filled only with whipped cream, until international influences introduced almond paste and jam versions. In addition to strawberry jam, KukliFest offers buns filled with, for example, cherry, lingonberry, blackberry, or even mango. In the hands of some local pastry chefs, the bun has even been reshaped into a Shrove croissant, and others have added a small amount of quark, vanilla cream, or various spices to the whipped cream.

As in previous years, the festival’s ambassador is Finnish travel influencer Henna Mikkilä, familiar to many visitors to Tallinn and Estonia. Visit Tallinn has also published interviews with four charming bakers on its themed page. Speaking in Finnish about their backgrounds and Shrove treats are representatives from the vegan café Kringel, Healthy Sweets by Polina known for gluten and lactose-free pastries, the café/patisserie Rukis preserving culinary craft traditions, and SUMI, a unique combination of brewery, restaurant, and bakery.

To help those with special diets, here is a small, though by no means comprehensive, list for finding treats. Gluten-free Shrovetide buns can be found at Kivi Paber Käärid and Healthy Sweets by Polina, and possibly also at the waffle café Vaffel, which is outside the festival. Vegan versions were offered last year at least by the vegan restaurant V, Kopli Köök, Karu talu chocolate shop, and the Nihe, Kringel, and Rohe Cafés—the buns at the last two are also lactose-free. Read more about restaurants and cafés serving vegan food in Tallinn here.

KukliFest is therefore not a single event, but a themed month offering winter indulgence moments across the city. Referring to the festival’s climax, Shrove Tuesday, Tallinn’s tourism pages ask with a twinkle in their eye: “Why settle for just one day?” We couldn’t agree more.

To learn more about this and similar topics
cafés gluten-free KukliFest Shrove Bun Festival Shrovetide Shrove Tuesday Vastlakukkel Vegan