Valgomasis is a new lunch spot and catering business in Vilnius; written for Lithuanian Heritage March/April 2017.
My friends Agnė Alenovič and Jura Radzevič opened Valgomasis, a tiny lunch spot around the corner from the flower market in Vilnius, in December 2015. I had the pleasure of visiting for the first time last September while on a heritage trip with my entire family.
When traveling with my family, we eat well, and we often enjoy recalling our top five or ten meals throughout the years. One is certainly the fondue dinner we had in Chamonix in 2004 during the World Cup—we were joined by my ski racer friend Stanley Hayer. Another was at the Ute City Bank in Aspen in 1999, the dinner at which my brother Jason officially earned the nickname “Surf & Turf” after ordering the Wild Game Platter. My mother’s birthday dinner in the majestic dining room of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park is pretty high up on the list, as are our two meals at Apvalaus Stalo Klubas in Trakai where the amuse bouche came out smoking in liquid nitrogen.
So when we say that our meal at Valgomasis is perhaps one of the best we’ve ever had, we’re ranking it among a pretty impressive list of dining establishments.
I recently wrote about Valgomasis, which means dining room, for Lithuanian Heritage magazine:
“At the risk of sounding overgenerous in my praise, the puréed beet soup was the best I’d ever tasted—smooth and creamy but not heavy and very gently seasoned; the flavor of the beets really shined. I’d never really been a fan of panna cotta, but Jura’s recipe made with buttermilk—a technique he’d learned while working at a two-star Michelin restaurant in Sweden—was silky and light with just a hint of sweetness.”
Click the link below to read more about our incredible lunch and how Agnė and Jura came to run one of the best new restaurants in Vilnius.
Lunch at Valgomasis: The Best New Dining Room in Vilnius (PDF)
