Riga eats like a crossroads: German rye bread, Russian smoked fish, Latvian sour cream on everything. Graze the five hangars of Centrāltirgus, drink 45% Black Balsam, and eat pelēkie zirņi in the same weekend.
Five 1930s Zeppelin hangars plus outdoor rows — Europe's largest market. Separate pavilions for fish, meat, dairy and vegetables. Open 07:00–18:00 daily (fish hall closed Mondays). Buy smoked flounder, curd cheese and sauerkraut by weight.
The renovated fish hangar's upper level hosts around 20 counters: khinkali, Latvian smoked eel, pelmeni, oyster bar and craft-beer taps. Communal tables, order from several stalls at once. Daily 10:00–19:00, later on Fridays.
Riga's 'street of spirituality' in the Miera district: bohemian cafés, the Laima chocolate factory, and Valmiermuižas Alus Vēstniecība pouring unfiltered farmhouse beer from the Valmiera manor brewery with pearl-barley snacks and rupjmaize.
Restored 19th-century wooden warehouses across the Daugava hosting Riga's best farmers' market every Saturday 10:00–16:00 — Latgale honey, hemp butter, home-smoked meat, wine tastings and pīrāgi bacon rolls baked on site.
Lāči is Latvia's best-known rye bakery, baking sourdough rupjmaize in wood-fired ovens since 1993. Try saldskābmaize (sweet-sour rye), sklandrausis carrot-potato tarts and rye-bread dessert layered with cream and cranberries.
A three-storey log-cabin food hall, the flagship of Latvia's home-cooking chain. Self-service counters of grey peas with bacon, pork ribs, cold beetroot soup, potato pancakes and kvass brewed in-house. Open 11:00–22:00.
Black Balsam, made in Riga since 1752 from 24 botanicals at 45% ABV, is drunk neat, in coffee, or mixed with blackcurrant. Aptieka's apothecary-themed bar serves herbal-liqueur flights and balsam cocktails in a vaulted Old Town cellar.
Modern Latvian tasting menus from Mārtiņš Rītiņš's successors — Baltic herring, birch sap, smoked pike-perch and sea buckthorn plated over five to seven courses in a Torņa iela townhouse beside the Swedish Gate.
An 1898 red-brick market hall in Pārdaugava, restored in 2022 into Riga's most local food hall: farm butchers, a rye bakery, Georgian khachapuri, specialty roasters and a small brewery. Open Tue–Sun 09:00–19:00.
Speķa pīrādziņi — crescent yeast pastries stuffed with smoked bacon and onion — are Latvia's default snack, sold hot for under €1 in every bakery. Ķiploku Krogs, the garlic tavern on Jēkaba iela, serves garlic-heavy versions with dark beer.
Riga's cult brewery ferments beers with juniper, sweet gale, linden and cranberry, naming each after Latvian mythology. The taproom in a Miera-district factory yard pours 15 rotating taps with smoked-fish and pea snacks.
End in the Sporta 2 / Kaņepes quarter, where a former music school courtyard turned bar draws Riga's creative crowd for cheap Latvian craft cans, rye-bread shots and late kitchens serving herring on black bread until 01:00.