Balt Restaurant Zelenogradsk Review
Updated: 30 June 2024 | First 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 four-storey building to which it is attached, 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 what they should be saying is not that it’s so ‘big’ but “It’s so tall”! In keeping with the modern trend in bar and restaurant design, the Balt is undeniably big, but, initially and accurately, the spaciousness perceived is confined to the height of the ceiling. In fact, the seating area which leads away from the entrance hall is limited to the perimeter of the extended part of the building; it forms the letter ‘L’, being a long, but slightly wider than the word implies, corridor. This is because, once again conforming to popular predilections, the restaurant is built around the kitchen, in other words built to a plan in which a centralised 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 patrons on edge, since they never knew come the following morning, having enjoyed their meal the night before, whether their friends would be ready and waiting to scream, “You didn’t eat there, did you!” and then hamming it up with relish, proceed to recount in lurid detail the latest hygiene scandal.
Today, there is no need to be told by the ‘well-meaning’ ~ friends, family or the media ~ what goes on in restaurant kitchens, because everything is on display and laid out for the eyes to see. Restaurant kitchens have come of age. They are open, accessible, uninhibited, something to be admired, something to be proud of, 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 an observance of cautious propriety to out-and-out exhibitionism.
True, some bar and restaurant designs tend to over-egg the soufflé. Displaying a kitchen eagerly in all its stainless steel, 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 and in-keeping centrepiece, enabling it to escape comparison with a man in a mac on a hill surrounded by too little foliage. I think the word I am searching for is ‘subtle’.
In fact, everything about Balt, not in its individual accoutrements but taken as a job lot, regarded in its entirety, is the epitome of subtle. How this works exactly is rather clever, because Balt is far and away not without a surprise or two, not undernourished in 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 to which we had been escorted. The seats to which we had been shown occupied the latter portion upon the longer extension of the ‘L’ shaped room, almost at its inflection, thus availing us of a first-class view of each and all the different elements, which, when assembled as a whole, add up to the Balt experience.
First off, we were close to the kitchen, just a few feet away from the serving area: a long, curved counter on which chefs add the finishing touches to the dishes they are preparing before popping them into the tandoor oven, and from which attentive waiters pick up meals that are ready to go.
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, 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. The tops were made of marble, the ends scalloped to give an uncut look. They were supported on a cluster of angled posts, recycled wave-breaking poles, some of which had been allowed to protrude through the table’s surface, and hovering above them with remarkable pendulosity was a clump or cluster of shell-like bowls, off-white in shade and in shape asymmetrical, which had me wondering, out loud as it happens, if they were really made from the pumpkin skins I imagined they were or from moulded papier-mâché
Every item in the Balt’s atmospheric makeup is an imagistic letter in the word and 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 the application of chic sophistry as it does from down-to-earth and back-to-nature.
For all its emphasis on the natural world, Balt’s designers’ have hedged their bets, choosing not to preclude but include the fashionable tried and tested, omniprevalent in bar and restaurant, distressed industrial look.
This approach has become so widespread that it has gone beyond ‘must have’ to ‘can’t do without’. In the Balt, it has gone one further, becoming ‘Would you Adam and Eve it, the concept actually works!’: rocks, marble, stoneware vases, corn plants, vegetables and pieces of tree, rub along quite nicely, thank you, 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 of modern chic and reclaimed-rundown and then wrap it all up 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 repetitive 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. It works because it’s good.
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’m 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 a connoisseur of atmosphere.
As a baked-beans-on-toast man, a man who likes simple food, I cannot provide you with a gourmet breakdown of the range of food 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, naturally. It was palatable but 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!
The main thing
Balt (restaurant)
Kurortny Prospekt, 16, Zelenogradsk, Kaliningrad region
Tel: +7 906 238 99 74
Website: https://balt.rest/
💚 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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