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The Rīga – Gauja Region has got the opportunity in 2017 to become the European Region of Gastronomy. A special concept, called Wild at palate, has been created to honour bounty of Latvian nature and their exquisite taste.

Latvia’s gastronomy is multi-layered – just like our traditional layered rye-bread dessert. Where a layer of crumbed rye bread, baked on maple leaves, is covered with a layer of grated cranberries, gathered in the nearby marsh, topped with cream from the neighbour’s dairy cow, whipped up by Grandma, then, again bread, berries, whipped cream…

Sorrel, rhubarb, birch and maple sap in spring. Catfish, sour cherries and cloudberry in summer. Venison, boletus mushrooms, bread, turnip and mountain ash in winter. It all will become a kind of a peculiar palette to paint the plates of Latvian people and guests with wild, modern traditional flavours.

The project is mainly focused on the promotion of gastronomic tourism and the development of the Gauja National Park as a tourist destination. At the same time the project will focus on education, urban and rural interaction, healthy food and nutrition issues, food traditions, the importance of restaurants, hospitality, culture, entrepreneurship and the role of innovations in gastronomy, to be implemented by each of the project partners.

The overall objective of the European Region of Gastronomy is to improve the quality of life in European regions by keeping the local food culture and traditions strongly valuable, meanwhile promoting gastronomic creativity and local product quality.