Balt Restaurant Zelenogradsk Review

Published: 29 January 2023 ~ Zelenogradsk Restaurant BALT a Lesson in Harmony

I’m sure, almost certain, that it was not there 18 months ago, when I last visited Zelenogradsk (doesn’t time fly!), but it was there now. I am talking about a new restaurant ~ new to me ~ that sits smack bang at the midway point of Zelenogradsk’s serpentine high street: a large, impressive, luxurious establishment set back from the street inside a broad paved plaza, its plate-glass single-storey extension forming a scaled juxtaposition against the taller building from which it extends, the latter meticulously refurbished to a grand and imposing standard.

In the winter months when we were in town the first impression of this restaurant from the outside looking in was PC; that’s not politically correct but plush and cosy.

It was bitterly cold that day, and if the hallmark of a successful bar or restaurant is principally defined by the pulling power it possesses to tempt one off the street, then rest assured Balt restaurant has it.

Oh, did I forget to tell you? The name of the restaurant is Balt.

The first impression from the exterior of the building, which is so categorically  bourgeoisie  that Lenin had turned his back to it, was swish. I made a mental note, a simple equation: plush+posh+impressive+coastal resort+town centre = expensive. So, let’s jump to the bill. We had three dishes, nothing elaborate, a speciality tea and a glass of beer. It didn’t break the bank.

The second impression the Balt conveys is ‘big’. “It’s so big!” say your senses, when perhaps they should be saying, “It’s so tall”! In keeping with the modern trend in bar and restaurant design, the Balt is undeniably big, but, initially and accurately, this perception of spaciousness is confined to the height of the ceiling. The restaurant area leading away from the entrance hall is in fact limited to the perimeter of the building; it forms the letter ‘L’, being a long, but slightly more wide than the word implies, corridor. This is because, conforming once again to modern predilections, the restaurant has been built around a central kitchen, in other words built to a plan where kitchen is King.

In the olden days, restaurants concealed their kitchens as though they were the black sheep of the family, the philosophy seeming to be out of sight, out of mind. This closeted mentality was an excellent way of keeping the eating-out fraternity on edge, since they never knew, having enjoyed an excellent meal the night before, whether their friends would treat them the following morning to a ‘You didn’t eat there, did you!?’ story, involving the latest hygiene scandal. Today, there is no need to be told by ‘well-meaning’ friends, family or media, what goes on in restaurant kitchens, because all is laid out for the eyes to see. Restaurant kitchens have come of age. They are open, accessible, uninhibited, something to be admired not hidden away like a seedy back room in the depths of a mucky book shop. Restaurant kitchens have been emancipated, and a large part of that liberation lies in the transformation from cautious propriety to unabashed exhibitionism.

Some bar and restaurant designs tend to OTT this. Displaying a kitchen in all its stainless steel and hygiene-oriented, busy, industrious, functioning glory is one thing, but it is quite another and quite inexcusable to overdo the exposure. Thankfully, Balt’s kitchen is a far more sophisticated centrepiece, enabling it to escape comparison with a man in a mac on a hill surrounded by precious little foliage. I think the word I am searching for is ‘subtle’.

In fact, everything, about Balt restaurant, not in its individual accoutrements but as a job lot, taken in its entirety, is subtle. How this works exactly is a rather clever feat, because Balt is not without novelty.

Zelenogradsk Restaurant BALT

We were able to appreciate both the component parts of this dichotomy and its overarching effect from the favourable location of the table we were escorted to. Our seats occupied the latter portion upon the longer extension of the room’s ‘L’, almost at the inflection, thus availing us of a first-class view of each and all the different elements, which, when taken together, add up to the Balti experience.

First off, we were only a few feet away from the serving area; a long, curved counter from which waiters collect ‘meals to go’ and on which chefs add the finishing touches to the dishes they are preparing before popping them into the tandoor oven.

From our vantage point, we had a privileged view of the kitchen and the floor-to-ceiling tandoor, a large cylindrical-shaped oven used for baking unleavened flatbreads and for roasting meat. Once the open oven door and blazing fire beyond had ceased to remind me of crematoria, it was fun to watch the chef at work, sliding the various dishes and breads into the wood-fired oven with the help of a peel tool, a long-handled shovel-like implement with a flat metal pan attached to its furthest extremity.

Looking straight ahead, I noted with satisfaction the high-backed wooden chairs belonging to the nearest table. The back rests consisted of two vertical ebonised planks slightly angled toward one another. Close to their highest point a pair of semi-circles had been cut out so that in alignment they formed a circle. The only other concession to decoration was the seemingly random inclusion of small, pierced motifs, simple shapes which donated a touch of mystique without disturbing the minimalist balance.

My forward view also provided examples of ingenious lighting styles, including a heavy, orange tassel-roped pendant and lampshades mimicking small sheaths of straw.

The tables to the left and behind me were objects to be marvelled at. They had thick, ragged-end marble-apparent tops, were supported on a small cluster of angled tree trunks, some of which had been allowed to protrude through the table’s surface, and hovering above them with remarkable pendulosity a clump or cluster of shell-like bowls, off-white and almost asymmetrical, which had me wondering out loud if they were really made from pumpkin skins or moulded from papier-mâché.

Every item in the Balt’s atmospheric makeup is an imagistic letter in the word and the concept of ‘Natural’: wood, stone, fire, rope, straw, vegetables. At one end of the subtle spectrum, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble would not look out of place, but the Balt’s natural is a polished natural that borrows as much for its appeal on down-to-earth and back-to-nature as it does on chic sophistry. 

Following the line of the floor, a patchwork quilt of natural-look tiling in a crazy-paving composition, my eyes discovered the bar (they would, wouldn’t they!), all wood with top-shelf liquor brands set smartly against undressed brickwork.

For all its emphasis on the natural world, and for good fashionable measure, Balt’s designer’s had hedged it’s bets, choosing not to preclude but include the draw factor of a tried, tested and much approved formula: the distressed industrial look.

This approach has become so prevalent that it has gone beyond ‘must have’ and has entered the realms of ‘can’t do without’. In the Balt, it has gone one further, becoming ‘Would you Adam and Eve it, it actually works’; thematic principles such as rocks, marble, stoneware vases, corn plants, vegetables and pieces of tree, rubbing shoulders with gnarled brickwork, whitewashed slat-board old beam ceilings, exposed ventilation ducts and suspended arty farty spots.

It is a tribute to Balt’s interior designers that they have managed to pull off a subtle, seamless fusion between modern chic and reclaimed rundown and then wrap it up in in an eco-friendly ethnicity.

In a nutshell ~ and I am sure that Balt would approve of the use of such natural imagery ~ the key word to Balt’s come-hither and dine-within appeal is harmony. Everything, including things that would normally be at odds with each other, are wedlocked. It might be a marriage of convenience, but one that is no less perfect for it. Even the ethnic music, with its emphasis on tom-tom beat and chanting, is low-key, Sade-like and subtle.

At the centre and everywhere else of this is lighting. I’ve said it before; I’ve said it again; I’ll say it again and keep on saying it: from Restaurant Guy Savoy in Paris to The Four Seasons B&B in Brightlingsea, if the lighting is not right everything else will be wrong. Lighting is the magic drawstring that pulls everything together.

Balt’s lighting is soft, suffused and artistically modulated, a harmonising integration of ambient-sensitive ceiling spots and downlighters, overhead table pendants, each paired with its own novel shade, soft-glow wall lights, natural fire and candles. It’s good, because it works.

At this juncture, I know what you are thinking: So much for the Balt’s design; what about the grub?

Those of you who have read any of my bar/restaurant reviews will know that when it comes to food I’m hopeless. Why do I go to bars? To drink. Why do I go to restaurants? Usually because the company I am in wants to go to restaurants, and so I tag along, but also because, as you may have deduced, I am an ardent fan of interior design and atmosphere. 

As a baked beans on toast man, a man who likes simple food, I cannot provide you with a gourmet breakdown of what the Balt has to offer or the quality of its meals, and neither shall I try. However, a quick twirl around the internet should satisfy your curiosity. It might even tell you all you need to know.

Our order at the Balt amounted to a snackette: a spicey vegetable platter on oven baked bread, a white leavened flatbread similar in texture and taste to naan, and some exotic-looking poppadoms  It was not in the least expensive, but I will say that presentation took precedence over quantity. Now, were you to indulge in a main meal, the situation may be completely reversed or, like everything else at Balt, a happy medium struck.

I had a beer there, which was palatable, but it was served up in one of those peculiar ‘neither here nor there’ glasses, ie glasses that are neither small nor large, which frankly I find irritating. Half a litre, fine; half a half litre, fine; anything else exceeds my mathematical ability (see Soul Garden post).

The Balt, I am told,offers a range of dishes based on Indian subcontinent fare, which is something of a luxury in this part of the world. The prices are so-so, but not so expensive that they will tear the lining out of your pocket, and the carefully choreographed atmosphere, which is as restful and relaxing as it gets, beats anything I have experienced anywhere else in the Kaliningrad region or for that matter in the UK. Recommend the Balt? I’d buy it if I could!

💚 Around the Kaliningrad region

Angel Park Hotel > An inspirational rural recreation centre on the site of an East Prussian settlement
Amber Legend Restaurant > Amber Legend Yantarny, a jewel in the coastal town of Yantarny
Fishdorf Country Guest Complex > A family-oriented retreat, secluded and steeped in nature
Fort Dönhoff (Fort XI) > An evocative 19th century redbrick fortress, part of Königsberg’s labyrinth defence network
Polessk Brewery > Beer, history and German-Gothic architecture (that’s my personal order of preference!)

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