Here's the short summary:
My wife: "This is the best fish I've ever had."
My daughter: "I've never been so shook by food."
Me: "O.M.G!"
The long version: we're on a cruise and had a stop in Tallinn. We signed up for a bus tour...(which was kind of lame). We had about 3 hours after the tour that we could use for whatever we wanted- so I thought I'd find a restaurant to experience Estonian food. I planned out the trip and searched restaurants weeks ago. Not knowing much about Tallinn, or about the bus tour- I figured it was best to find a nice restaurant close to the cruise terminal. If I had known more, I probably would have chosen a restaurant in the "Old Town" - and there are plenty of them there with high ratings. I'm sure those would have been good too- but I'm glad I didn't know. ANNO is so remarkable, that there aren't enough superlatives to describe the food! It's simply amazing (and the atmosphere is wonderful too). I've given 5-star restaurant reviews before, but ANNO is on a different scale. Anyway we asked the tour operator to let us off before we got back to the ship, and she thought we were crazy. There is one thing to keep in mind- there is massive road construction going on around ANNO- literally around it. The roads/sidewalks etc. are in total upheaval, with ANNO sticking out like a little oasis. We had to walk through all of that (including climbing up some rather dirty broken roads). I thought for sure ANNO would be closed due to the construction cutting it off from the city- but it was open. (Note: I think there may be a tiny road behind ANNO that is reachable by car, since we did see one car there.)
Atmosphere, service, presentation, quality, friendliness, and- most importantly- taste are all off the charts. This restaurant would be winning awards in any major world city. There are so may layers of taste and texture to the food- none of it is extreme- all of it combines together perfectly- with so many unusual ingredients that all work together.
We had the Avacado starter- and my daughter asked for some toast to go with it because she thought she was ordering avacado toast. The flavors and textures here were just nothing I've ever experienced before. Then we had whitefish tartare, made from trout. Simply stunning. The smoky eggplant fillet was pure deliciousness, and the tiger prawn / watermelon salad was amazing (I'm trying to figure out that dressing. So good, and so unlike any other dressing I've had). Then for main courses we had Whitefish Fillet (pike-perch) that was out of this world, spinach ricotta ravioli which was sublime, and duck leg config which was exquisite.
The road construction made getting to ANNO an adventure, but it was well worth it. Oh and I forgot to mention the wine. They have a good wine selection and the Spanish Garnacha I had was quite delicious.
To think we could have been falling asleep on a boring tour bus instead of experiencing some of the most amazing food in the world. I highly recommend this place!More