Exploring & eating in Kaunas, Lithuania

Lithuania’s second-largest city certainly doesn’t feel that large with its one main cobbled street running like a slow, singular pulse through the centre of its old town. As a European city break destination, I’ll be honest, there are better choices. But, that said, this city does possess some charm and it was fun exploring Kaunas with a group of friends.

Kaunas, in comparison to other European city break destinations, is very cheap. Over three days we spent less than £200 each all in, that’s including taxis, museums and a lot of food and drink.

What is there to eat & drink?

Kaunas isn’t really a foodie hotspot but we did find a few tasty gems. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for vegetarians though – the Lithuanian diet is meat-heavy. We mainly saw and ate game, pork and duck, accompanied by different types of potato.

We had doughnuts in two places – each very different. Spurginé for raw unadulterated Lithuanian tradition – black coffee and deep-fried balls of dough slide across the counter at an alarming rate, served by unsmiling old women. It looked as though it hadn’t changed decor or staff since the 1970s and we enjoyed a whole range of deep-fried patties and doughnuts filled not just with sweet things but savoury too – meat, cabbage, mushrooms. I loved it there!

In complete contrast, Holy Donut comes straight from somewhere else – New York or Shoreditch maybe, complete with neon tube writing and a healthy wholemeal and seed topped option on the menu. You’ll pay around €2.50 there, versus 75¢ at the other place. No need to choose one, just do both. After all, you’re on holiday right?

New versus old

Meat eaters paradise

Kaunas is best known for its duck and game apparently. Gavin Stewart told us this. He’s a local foodie who originally hails from the UK. You can listen to him on this episode we recorded for At the Sauce. Unfortunately, he also told us that for some reason Lithuanians like to overcook their duck. And he wasn’t wrong. We tried it twice and both times it was way too cooked for any of our liking, although the flavour was very good.

The best place we ate at was Medziotoju Uzeiga (Hunter’s Inn) which was recommended to us by Gavin. If you’re not keen on the hunter theme, perhaps steer clear of this place which is decorated not unlike the taxidermy museum I’ll get onto in a moment. Above our table, there was a spotlight made from a caged stuffed ferret. Anyway, taxidermy aside, we ate some excellent food there.

A game sharing plate for 2-3 people, loaded with venison meatballs, roe deer and boar sausages was delicious. The meat sat in a thick gravy with carrots and onions all of which got mopped up with the entire contents of the breadbasket. With the game sharing plate, we also had a fresh crisp salad and buttered new potatoes. Alongside this, we ordered a red deer, apple and thyme stew which was just delicious. A perfect balance of salty and sweet. With beers all round, this meal cost us around €50. I can’t imagine how much it’d be at home.

Berneilu is a great place to try traditional Lithuanian cuisine although if waiting staff in lederhosen isn’t your thing, maybe steer clear. Despite seeming to be mostly locals dining around us, this place did seem a little on the ‘theme’ side. That said, between the four of us we ate so much that our night out ended by 9:30 pm because we were just too full. The bill was only €15 per person for an obscene amount of food and booze.

Potatoes for the win

On our last day exploring Kaunas, we went to a place called Soul on the main square and enjoyed the best cepelinai we’ve tried. Stodgy but moreish potato dumplings stuffed with meat and cheese curds, drizzled in some kind of stock laden with crisp bacon bits and spring onions. Add to that a large dollop of sour cream and what could go wrong?  The potato pancakes—bulviniai blynai—were also very tasty but needed a good crack of salt for my palette.

At Soul we also tried Gira, a traditional fermented drink usually made with rye bread or malt (often called ‘black bread’) and sometimes flavoured with berries and fruits. As you know, we are fans of this type of thing and make our own kombucha at home. It was quite sweet and very malty but enjoyable. We got some packets from the corner shop to make it at home too. I’ll keep you posted.

Aside from traditional Lithuanian food, there seem to be several Italian and Chinese places (if these take your fancy). There are quite a few bars serving average burgers and gastro pub food – one of which is the trendy looking but disappointing Hop Doc – go for beers but don’t eat there. The food was awful although to be fair to them, the staff handled our complaint well. It was clear that the best food to eat in Kaunas is the local food, not the trendy food and if we’d have been there for longer, we’d definitely have stuck to that.

Boozy baby

Our favourite discovery was all the cherry flavoured booze! Locally brewed cherry beer is great – lookout for the Vyšniniś brand. There are a few but we felt this was the best. Very quaffable! We enjoyed one too many cherry liqueur shots too, topped with fresh lemon juice. So. Good.

What is there to do aside from eating?

A word of warning. If you’re travelling to Kaunas on Ryanair as we did, you might want to opt for Monday – Friday rather than Friday – Monday which we did. Why? Because a lot of places were shut! Most museums close on Mondays and most of the shops were closed over the weekend. This could be because we were there out of season but I’d hate for you to lose out on what few touristy things there are to do there.

There is stuff to see and do though, wrap up warm (if you’re there in the winter) and be prepared to walk. The city is navigable on foot as long as you don’t mind getting that step count up! And remember a battery pack because Google Maps is going to be your best friend – nothing new there when it comes to city break destination directions!

Exploring Kaunas

Head to St. Michael the Archangel Church. Not just for the church, for the catacombs. I don’t want to give too much away but bizarrely, there is a long-running (14 years so far!) installation which focuses on what it’s like to be blind. The whole thing probably takes no more than half an hour and costs a couple of euros each but it’s worth taking the time to go.

We also really enjoyed the Taxidermy Museum. Hear me out. I know it sounds a bit creepy and bad taste but this place was incredible. The museum itself was in an amazing brutalist communist-era building and the exhibition was huge. Not only do they have the usual stuffed birds and insects you often see in old National Trust houses, but they had huge animals. We saw an elephant, a giraffe, polar bear, and tigers. The exhibits are old (we told ourselves they’d been caught and stuffed by Victorian scientists in the name of research) but wonderfully preserved. Being able to see such incredible wildlife (albeit stuffed) up close was pretty amazing. A real insight into another time and way of thinking.

Another museum housed in a fantastic brutalist building was the Devil Museum. Again, entry was incredibly cheap—€4 each—and the exhibits were great. A huge collection of devils from tea sets to hand-carved masks and tiny bronze sculptures. The descriptions are well translated and it was really interesting to read about Lithuanian history and the folklore stories behind the devil from around the world.

Kaunas Castle—a 17th-century fort—is fun for an hour. It’s quite small but we enjoyed trying on the costumes and posing on the bear rug (though I’m not 100% sure Dave was supposed to try that stuff on…). There were some old torture exhibits to try too. As for historical education, we didn’t really learn much. But, as I said, it was good fun and I’d go again. If the weather is nice, this area of the town is also by the river and very pretty. When we were there it was below 0º so it was a bit chilly for anything more than running from activity to activity!

Would we go back?

Hmmm, probably not. I mean, as far as Eastern Europe goes, the place was pretty. It seems pretty liveable and probably really nice in summer, there just isn’t a huge amount to do other than some strange museums and lots of meat. Those things can be fun though and we definitely enjoyed ourselves for three days.

Kaunas is a really affordable European city break destination. The flights were around £70, the Airbnb was similar and once there, everything was cheap compared to other places in Europe. In conclusion, if you’re gathering a group of friends and looking to visit somewhere new, why not give it a try?