Going Out In Riga

Midway between Riga's main railway station and the Hotel Latvia, A. Suns has about a good a location as it's possible to get outside the Old Town. Named after a Salvador Dali film and attached to an arthouse cinema and upscale shopping complex, it's long been popular with Riga's expat population and older, well-off locals as a place to start a night-out.

It's the location more than anything else that attracts people to A. Suns. There's nothing spectacularly good about the decor - a kind of fake-industrial look with red walls, metal pipes and TVs showing sport around the bar - or the selection of beers, the price of which is not much lower than in the Old Town. Although the food comes in big portions it costs a lat or two more than you'd pay in most other places with mains averaging around five or six lats. The menu itself is fairly unimaginative, with a mix of salads, soups, Tex-Mex burgers and pasta, and the service, while very friendly, is often painfully slow (if you want a quick drink, order directly from the bar).

The biggest thing A. Suns has going for it is convenience: outdoor seating, long opening hours (until 1am), English-language menus, decent music and, unlike many other city centre bars, a location that's easy to find. If you're only in Riga on holiday though, there's no real reason to end up here unless you're staying right next door.

The biggest and most famous of Lido's eight restaurants, Lido Recreation Centre is also one of the most inconvenient to get to. Whereas Alus Seta is located slap bang in the middle of the Old Town and the larger Vermanitis occupies a prime site on Elizabetes iela overlooking Vermanes Park, the chain's flagship restaurant is stuck a forty-five minute walk south of the city centre on Krasta iela, near the River Daugava, cathedral-sized car showrooms and an out-of-town retail park. Nonetheless, it's well worth the tram ride out of the centre.

The Recreation Centre holds over a thousand people in one of Europe's biggest log-cabin buildings, topped with a replica windmill (the English translation of the Latvian word Lido). The are wooden benches and miniature canals outside are perfect for long summer evenings. If the weather's not so good there's also a small amusement park and ice rink.

The interior is divided into a downstairs beer cellar and dancefloor which gets packed out on Friday and Saturday nights, a ground floor self-service cafeteria, and a more formal upstairs restaurant with table service and live music. As with all of Lido's restaurants, the food is eclectic but relatively basic, a point-and-order combination of traditional local staples like solyanka soup and rye bread mixed with spaghetti, potatoes, chips, salads and meat dishes, all charged for by weight. It's filling but hardly exciting, though there's something for everyone's tastes and it's the perfect accompaniment for the home-brewed beer which is, of course, the main reason to visit.

Half-litres of beer at the Recreation Centre cost around fifty santimes less than they do at Alus Seta, with Lido Special at one lat twenty santimes and the tasty honey beer Medalus ten santimes more. Better still, you can order by the litre, with huge glasses of Special costing just over two santimes. Lido's beer is among the best in Latvia and the prices here are some of the cheapest you'll find anywhere in Riga. Don't miss out.

The Recreation Centre is open daily from 10am (self-service restaurant) to midnight (beer cellar). There's a cashpoint near the entrance and a children's playroom open until 10pm. To get there take tram number 3, 7 or 9 in the direction of Dole and get off at Lido Atputas Cenrs. Tickets cost 40 santimes if bought from a kiosk or an extra 10 santimes from the driver.

Named after one of Korea's best known national parks, Soraksans is Riga's only Korean restaurant.

Although it's in the Old Town (near the castle and Dome Square on Miesnieku iela), Soraksan's prices are not as high as you'd expect. Open from noon to just before midnight, set lunches start at under four lats and evening mains like bibimbap and barbecued beef average around five or six lats. There are cheaper options such as Pokumbap (a filling dish of fried rice and vegetables) for two lats fifty, lots of gimbap (Korean sushi) and seafood, and a small number of vegetarian options. The Korean national food, the ubiquitous kimchi, is available as a stew or as a side dish (one lat). The food was more authentic tasting than I expected, the kimchi just the right mix of salty, sweet and sour and the bibimbap a barely manageable portion of rice and tender vegetables served with dollops of hot pepper sauce.

The decor is as impressive as the cuisine, the walls decorated in folk handicrafts and hangul, although the tables are a little cramped if you're in a group any bigger than four or five (a private room for ten is available if you don't mind sitting Korean style on the floor).

The only downside of Soraksans was the service, which was friendly but painfully slow. There were only two other parties there when we visited on a Friday night but we waited twenty minutes between getting the menus (in English and Latvian) and placing our orders, and more than the same again before the food arrived. If you're not in a hurry and have had enough of Lido, Soraksans is a great choice.

The price of a pint is not as cheap as it used to be in this part of the world. The draughty cafe across the road from work, where beer comes out of the tap like frozen milkshake from a half-crushed straw, has recently upped its prices to a lat, around half of what you'd pay in the Old Town. The Hotel Latvija's Sky Bar now charges two eighty (but does throw in a view of the city for free), while the posers' cafe bar of choice Cuba tops the lot at three.

Gauja is an exception. A cramped sixties-retro place on Terbates iela that attracts a crowd (if a bar that seats fifteen people at a push can realistically be said to hold such a thing) of young, alternative Latvian-speakers, it sells two kinds of Brenguļu beer (lager and dark, porter style) for only one lat twenty a half-litre, 330ml bottles of Staropramen for the same, and a big selection of spirits for under two. Aside from the vodka cabinet, the decor could have been lifted wholesale from a granny's sitting room: cheap coffee tables and stretched sofas, a coatrack by the door, framed Latvian farmyard scenes and a garish print of a Soviet teen idol. There's a single windowless unisex toilet in the corner and a big window with views out on the street, diner-style stools lined up against a shelf.

It's a bit out of the way - ten minutes east of the Old Town and five beyond the Hotel Latvia - and closes up early at eleven, but the barmaid manages the occasional smile (quite a treat in the Latvian service industry) and the prices and atmosphere make a change from the oversized, overpriced tourist traps around Old Riga.

Far from the stag night crowd, what Orange Bar lacks in space it more than makes up for in hedonistic atmosphere. It rarely gets going until after midnight at weekends, but from then until 5am it’s packed with an alternative crowd of young Latvians, exchange students and the occasional backpacker – with not a high-heeled shoe anywhere in sight.

Orange isn’t the kind of place you’d visit for a quiet pint or a chat with friends. Dark and noisy, you’ll need to get here early to bag a seat at a table – and even then you’re likely to find someone dancing on top of it once the tiny dance floor fills up. Other people jump on the windowsills, watched by the crowd of smokers in the courtyard outside, while between pulling pints and pouring out shots of vodka the bar staff strut their stuff on top of the bar. The music varies from chart stuff to heavy rock. By two in the morning nobody cares.

The beer on tap is the hangover-inducing Zelta, at the Old Town standard price of two lats a half litre. Although the bar staff are friendly and speak excellent English, there are usually only two or three people working at any time, so be prepared for a wait to get served. Not as long as the wait for the one unisex toilet, however. At Orange you can’t afford to leave things to the last minute.

Although it’s slap bang in the middle of the Old Town, Orange isn’t the easiest place to find. From the Occupation Museum and the House of the Blackheads, walk behind St Peter’s and then down the narrow alley immediately to the left of St John’s Church. To the side of the church you'll see an arch in what looks like part of an old city wall. Walk through here and Orange is on the right.