Tallinn · Food

The station market, two minutes from the Old Town wall: a meat and fish hall, farm produce, and a row of small kitchens doing Georgian, Vietnamese and Estonian plates. Best at weekday lunchtime, when it is a working market rather than a sight.

Limestone warehouses between the Old Town and the passenger port, now a dense block of bakeries, cafés and mid-priced restaurants. The obvious place to eat if you have just walked off the Helsinki ferry with a suitcase.

Old Town restaurant doing contemporary Estonian cooking — elk, fish soup, seasonal vegetables — at Rataskaevu 16. Open Sun–Thu 12:00–23:00 and Fri–Sat 12:00–24:00; starters run about €11–16 and mains €16–32. Book ahead, it fills nightly.

Two habits worth copying: buy dark rye (must leib) from any supermarket rather than a restaurant basket, and take your main meal at lunch, when kitchens across the city put out a fixed päevapraad plate far below dinner prices. Kohuke — a glazed curd bar from the chilled aisle — is the standard cheap snack.