Riga may not have so much fresh bread on offer as other capital cities and you are very unlikely to see people walking around with sticks of bread over their shoulders but there are many great bakeries in Riga. Which of them do we think is the best bakery in Riga?
In Riga you will find many bakeries dotted around the city, literally in all districts there will be a few places to pick up up some baked goods. The local tendency for bakers is to focus on ready to eat, small, sweet or savoury 'bulciņas'. These small tasty pastries, pies, cakes, buns are a mixture of various influences and are a great option for a quick snack on the go. You will not find so many sandwiches on offer outside of the supermarkets or kiosks in Riga. This modern type of lunch on the go seemed to have skipped Latvia during the Soviet period. In those times you would be more likely to see a one sided, thick and heavy dark bread, with egg, sprat and some dill or spring onion as garnish. Or maybe just a good smearing of lard! Locals tend to eat 'bulciņas' as a quick snack on the go or for a more substantial lunch they opt for a full cooked lunch, popular Mondays - Fridays throughout the city.
Our favourite bakery in Riga
We get asked quite often about where to buy Latvian bread and it really is the case that most people buy their bread from the supermarket. Latvian bread is of high quality and you can actually buy artisan breads, ready cut in the big supermarkets and you wont really find bread bakers in Riga, with the exception of large traditional loafs being sold in the Riga Central Market or at the craft markets and farmers markets
Here at Riga free tours we really have only 1 favourite bakery, "Mārtiņa Beķereja" that has a number of locations scattered across the city. Here local Grannies line up for their weekly coffee and cake, office workers stock up on sweet and savoury bulciņas for their work colleagues when celebrating names days, retirements or birthdays, students on a budget pick up a snack to eat and us tour guides we dash in to grab some carbohydrates between our tours.
"Mārtiņa Beķereja" is not expensive and has a huge range of products on offer, from specially made cakes, fine cream buns, potato filled goodies, jam and sweet delights and much, much more. If you want to know what is the best bakery in Riga. Look no further than "Mārtiņa Beķereja".
Another great bakery in Riga
Another great bakery in Riga is Gustav Bakery that you will find located next to many supermarkets or in shopping centers. Although they are good they are not the best in our opinion, but they do have great offers on their cakes when they have cooked too many, you can really by a full cake for around 6 - 10 euro which is amazing to be honest. Their pastries here are more international than Mārtiņa Beķereja and you will find more of a Danish, French influence here at a slightly higher price than our favourite.
As you can see from the video above Gustavs takes pride in presentation and although both of our top bakers in Riga can found i a number of locations you can sense that they have a hands on approach to quality and they are really without doubt way above of the competition that supermarkets attempt to compete with.
No matter which bakery you chose to visit in Riga, just make sure you do visit one of them and try as much of their baked products on offer as you can! After all you can burn off the calories on one of our walking tours afterwards to ensure you do not need to add an extra seat to your booking when you fly home!