On the eighth episode of Travel Tales by Afar, season five, Afar executive editor Billie Cohen travels to Estonia, where she learns about the country’s delicious “open café days"—and road trips around the south to eat her way through them.
Transcript
I’m sitting on a sprawling green yard in southern Estonia outside a small house with a small pond, and someone is bringing me a plate of food. This is not my home. I don’t know these people. But I’m hanging out at their house, eating their food, talking about the weather, and laughing at how New Yorkers and Estonians are actually kind of alike, and about how their grandmother woke up at 4 a.m. to bake the cake that I’m currently stuffing into my face. An hour ago, I was standing in onion fields with a man named Paulo. A little while before that, I was in a garden with a guy named Tauno, grilling tiny lobsters. And before that, I was at a farmhouse sitting under a shady tree with a university professor named Sirli and marveling at a parfait she’d made in the colors of the Estonian flag: blue, black, and white.
I’m here, in these kind of random places that most visitors to Estonia don’t see, not because I’m a journalist or have any VIP access, but because Estonia does this very special thing: On nearly every weekend during the summer months, neighbors in different towns around Estonia get together to host “home cafeteria days,” or “buffet days.” You might also hear them called “open café days.” It’s when they open their private homes and gardens as informal restaurants. They cook whatever they want—it could be plates of meat and vegetables, fish soups, onion-stuffed breads, a variety of pastries—and they serve it to whoever comes by, for a small cost. Some of these are well-organized events with websites or printed brochures with maps, and some are just posted on Facebook and people will put up handwritten signs along the road. Either way, the whole thing is incredible. And not only because of grandma’s 4 a.m. red-currant cake.
I found out about these open caféteria days completely by accident. I’m in Estonia on a guided press trip, visiting among other places, the city of Tartu because it’s one of Europe’s Capitals of Culture for 2024. It’s just me and another journalist and our guide Hanno, and on the last night—right before I was supposed to fly home to New York, we’re hanging out in a bar talking about what we have planned that weekend. And Hanno casually mentions, “Well, I’m going to be kind of continuing to tour around the country. I’m going to a couple open cafeteria events.”
I ask, “What’s that?” Picturing people gathering in bland institutional dining rooms. But then he goes on to explain that these are a summer tradition in Estonia, in which people invite guests into their homes and they cook for them—and you can just go around and eat at people’s houses! And I thought, “Well, that sounds amazing. I need to do that instead of whatever else I had planned back in New York.” So I changed my flight, and convinced Hanno to let me tag along. These are the kinds of opportunities travelers dream about.
I mean, most tourists don’t leave Estonia’s capital city Tallinn. It’s a popular port on Baltic cruises and has a beautiful medieval town center that’s been recognized by UNESCO. And wherever you walk, there’s this aroma of spiced cardamom almonds. It’s wonderful. But it’s only one small part of a small country; you can get to most other places in Estonia with just two to three hours of driving. So I’d be literally getting off the beaten path if I went to an open café day. Plus, at the end of that path would be tons of delicious food.
When we climb into Hanno’s car the next day, it’s perfect outside. The road out of Tartu becomes a single lane in each direction, lush strips of grass and thick trees on either side. The sky is cartoon blue. Road-tripping is easy in Estonia. A network of highways and well-paved roads connects everything, people drive on the right side of the road, internet works just about everywhere (in fact, Estonia was a pioneer in internet access and education), and the majority of people speak English. A few days ago, I’d left Tallinn and driven a bit farther west to Soomaa national park, where I was basically able to walk on water as I went bog hiking in one of the largest peat bog systems in Europe. But now I’m here in the south, and outside the car windows, the landscape is a blanket of green at this time of year, accented with lakes and forests and gentle hills.
Hanno tells me how the first open café day started in 2007 on the island of Hiiumaa. Now there are nearly 100 open café days every summer across the country. The one we’re heading to is on the Onion Route, so named because its sandy soil is great for growing onions. The route is a roughly 100-mile string of villages along Lake Peipus, a huge body of water that separates the eastern border of Estonia (a former Soviet republic) from Russia.
But the first home we pull into looks like a hipster haven from upstate New York: it’s a large grassy yard surrounded by restored farm buildings. One is a long stone barn with arched wooden doors that are wide open; there’s a counter placed in front and behind it I can see people cooking. Another man is barbecuing something on a grill on the lawn. I order a rhubarb lemonade, that kefir pudding parfait that’s striped blue, black, and white for the Estonian flag, and nab a spot on a bench under a tree to people-watch. Other guests sit on tables and chairs made from tree stumps, snacking on fresh-cooked food and sipping glasses of wine. A blond-haired woman in a flower print dress, white sneakers, and a brown apron is hustling around. This turns out to be Sirli, and this is her home.
For today, the barn has been converted into an open kitchen run by her two best friends, her son, her sister, and her mother. At the counter, I look over the menu of snacks—most are named from what I learn is Sirli’s sense of humor: “mosquito bites,”aka small servings of smoked meats, and “mosquito poison,” a local mint liqueur. And also she has something called “eat your fingers,” which are crispy fish sticks in a beer batter. She explains that the name of the town, Sääsekõrva, means “mosquito ears,” and she laughs, “Do mosquitoes even have ears?” she says. Regardless, she’s taken the pun and she’s run with it. I notice that’s not the only place she’s doing that. Off to our right is a colorful round garden, and it has a wooden sign planted among the herbs and flowers: It says “you can have a look around,” with a smiley face.
All the food she’s serving is from local farmers and fishermen. She says, “The ingredients are directly from the suppliers I know personally, and I know where they get them. I even know what the pigs eat.” As the lawn fills up with even more visitors, I can see how much work Sirli has in store. I ask her why she’s doing this. She says, “The people who are inside, they are my family and my closest friends. That’s the main thing, it’s that we’re doing it together.”
That stops me for a minute. Ostensibly, these open café days are for the visitors, for tourists—that’s what I was thinking. Even though most of the tourists are from Estonia (and I’m told by a few hosts that I’m the person who’s traveled the farthest for their food). But here at Sirli’s, it’s about her own community. Getting a peek into that is special. Rare. And, I don’t know, I’m kind of touched to get to be part of it.
The day goes on like this, with stops at a backyard barbecue with a teepee-shaped bonfire. At a dock where we watch people float across the river on a hand-cranked ferry to come try some homemade mustard. At a compound that feels like a summer camp where I meet a group of painters and I try some cakes made by kids. And at a group of craft stands and beehives on an open plot of grass, where some guys are grilling a whole pig on a spit, and I buy a wooden spoon that was carved by a woman named Crystal.
I talk to everyone—because that’s just who I am, whether I’m reporting or not—and I ask them about what they’ve made, the recipes, how their weekend is going. Nearly everyone is chatty and open, and when I comment on how welcoming the whole experience feels to me as an outsider, pretty much everyone I meet jokes that the camaraderie is an anomaly. My guide, Hanno, sums it up, “We’re not usually like this,” he says. “If you smile at an Estonian when you’re walking down the street, they’ll wonder why you’re smiling. But here, it’s different.” In a way, that feels very much like New Yorkers—we may not be all sunshine and rainbows when you pass us on the street, but sit us down with a drink and a good plate of food, and we’ll be your best friends.
A little later when we’re driving, Hanno pulls off the main route and starts to slowly plow into the tall grass, or at least that’s what it looks like before I see that he’s following two tire tracks. At the end, we find an open area in front of a couple of houses; two are covered in solar panels. Dozens of people sit on tree stumps and at picnic tables, kids are running around, and a man with a white beard, a gray ponytail, and a white knit skullcap is tending to a circular, two-level grill that looks like a flying saucer. I am mesmerized for a while as he dumps piles of raw onions around the outer ring and fusses over a parade of small lobsters until they’re neon red—and then we start to talk.
He tells me that this property is a community center. They do master classes in cooking here. Every few minutes, a woman named Triinu comes over with a couple of chunky wooden bowls filled with broth, into which Tauno places one of the crimson lobsters. I look around and see that nearly everyone in the garden is eating this soup. Some are washing it down with an alcohol made of cloudberry, raspberry, and honey that’s being served in little test tubes from a tent. Full bottles are for sale, and even now I’m still mad at myself for not buying one.
Now would probably be a good time to mention that I didn’t try the lobster soup. I’ve been a vegetarian for most of my life, and I have a list of food allergies. So when I came back from this trip and was gushing to everyone about it, my friends kept joking, “You don’t eat anything—why were you on a food trail?” But that wasn’t what it was about for me—and I think that’s really only part of what’s so great about this tradition. And anyway, there was plenty of cake. And dessert is my favorite course.
So I walk around the grounds and the food displays with Triinu, who I learn is the organizer of the whole Onion Route day. She says, “We do it to be together and make things together.” She explains that the idea is to showcase local producers and ingredients and support the community. She’s really proud of the quality of the food; in fact, she says everyone buys their ingredients from the region, and participants actually have to send in a menu for approval ahead of time.
Nowhere is that regional sourcing more obvious than in the village of Kolkja, on the banks of Lake Peipus. By now, we are in the heart of the Onion Route, where the houses are very colorful. They are all, like, purple, and every few hundred feet, I see a very old woman sitting at a rickety table hung with ropes of onion that she’s selling. On the main street, there’s this bright magenta shack that has barn doors flung open to reveal peak onion display: Bunches of them hang down artfully, and the doors are decorated with things like an old abacus, dolls made out of small flowerpots, and paintings of garlic. There’s also an award hanging there for the most eye-catching shop. The ancient woman who runs the place steps to the side as I take some pictures. She doesn’t want to be in them, and she’s the first person I’ve met who has no interest in talking to me. She, like most of the older generation in this town, only speaks Russian.
But a few doors down, I meet Paulo, a stout 65-year-old man with a full head of white hair, a bushy white mustache, and a thin, proud smile—and he is eager to tell me about his home. He and his wife have a shed full of fresh onion rolls—they’re one of the reasons this block smells amazing. Paulo is gregarious. He asks if I want to see their onion fields. And of course I do. So he leads me across the street and through a maze of fences to a field, where a dozen long mounds of dark brown soil are clearly losing a battle against a riot of wild grass. In Soviet times, Paulo tells me, the area grew a lot of onions for export, and the government would send big trucks to pick them up; the business made the residents wealthy. But now, grocery corporations get their onions elsewhere—the farming has dwindled and so has the income. Usually it’s very quiet in town, but today lots of people are coming by for the festival. Paulo says that, for him, it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow, he will be fishing at 5 a.m. like normal. He likes that better. But based on how sociable he’s been, I almost find that hard to believe.
In contrast, a few small streets away, I discover a gallery of contemporary art and photography in a former medical facility. The gallery was started by three women from the area nearly 10 years ago. The juxtaposition of an older generation’s fading culture and this burgeoning one from younger creatives is striking.
Our final stop is at a spot the hosts are calling Neighbors Café. Here, generations of family and friends work together at tents in a shared yard between their cottages. The menu runs the gamut from trendy crêpes to old-school bread pudding and fish soup.
I hang out with Carina and her mother, Haide, who are making pancakes and crêpes (it was Carina’s grandmother who made the 4 a.m. red-currant cake). I meet some of her friends who work in various occupations—none of which have anything to do with food or restaurants. “It’s fun,” Carina tells me of open café day. “You make good food, then you get good food and the neighbors get good food.”
I’m stuffed with cakes, parfaits, herbed potatoes, and vegetables at this point, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. But I’m also enjoying all the conversations. With Carina, we chat about our various travels, and about a sci-fi event her partner organized, and I comment on how this day has been such a great way to meet people. She agrees, but through what might be a very Estonian lens. She says these days are a way you don’t have to bother with small talk and instead can show what’s important to you: your food, your homes.
And I’ll tell you, the homes and the land around them are gorgeous. Just getting to drive through southern Estonia and see it all is a treat. At one of the homes, I meet a thirtysomething Estonian guy named Martin who is doing the route with his friends. He says, “Tourists should come because the homes and local flavors are what they see—the real Estonia is what they see.”
And from a visitor’s point of view, I say he’s right: I drove to places that I wouldn’t have gone to as a tourist on a typical route. I got to eat homemade food and try personal recipes I wouldn’t have tasted as a tourist on a typical route. And I met people I wouldn’t have met. That’s like the Holy Grail of travel. At open cafeteria days, hosts are not just letting visitors into their homes and gardens, but into their lives in a way. Because they’re not doing it for me or for you. This isn’t a canned tour; they weren’t marketing to an international audience. They were doing it for their own communities—and thanks to a serendipitous conversation with my tour guide and the kindness of strangers I met along the way, I got to be a part of that. And it turned out to be one of the most special travel experiences I’ve had. So I’m really grateful to everyone who welcomed me and fed me. One hundred percent worth it to change my flights. One hundred percent worth it even with all my food restrictions.
And again, anyone can join. So I’ll leave you with one last note: The 2024 Onion Route buffet day is September 7. Make sure you try the currant cake.
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This has been Travel Tales, a production of AFAR Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composed and produced by Strike Audio.
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