OSTERIA moderna
your neighbourhood restaurant
Bringing an upscale, but comfortable dining to Kristiine, Tallinn, Osteria Moderna is a place to enjoy beloved Italian food, drinks and conversation.
We try our best to use what nature gives us, bringing flavours of the season to your plate, while maintaining the highest quality and freshness of the goods.
With a great excitement we take our not so easy path of a newborn restaurant and you are very welcome to join us on this journey.
At Osteria Moderna, we believe in the continuous relationship between fresh delicious food and life’s moments of enjoyment. Everything is prepared in the simplest, most flavourful way.
An osteria was known as a place serving wine and simple food; down-home style of local eatery typically serving a short menu of local specialities such as pasta, meat or fish and wine is poured and consumed liberally. Although we allow ourselves to deviate a little from traditions (for what Moderna stands in the name), one important trait is present – Osteria Moderna is a family owned restaurant. Our two owners are also our Chefs. The menu, interior and each little piece was created by them with love and passion.
Talking, tasting, laughing, pouring wine, passing platters – this is how Italians do it at home and that’s how the food at Osteria Moderna is meant to be enjoyed: wholeheartedly, celebrating liveliness, warmth and hospitality!
italian rooster
Ever wondered why we have rooster as our logo? Well, here’s the story!
Rooster is a well known symbol of Italy , more precisely Tuscany. Commonly you can see it in form of a ceramic jar, often gifted as a housewarming gift, which symbolises Good Fortune or Good Luck.
Back to the early Renaissance, Giuliano Medici liked to throw huge parties for everyone in the villages to attend. The Pazzi(the only rivals) planned to kill Guiliano after the festival in Gallina. The hired assassins would have succeeded, except they had to cross a yard full of roosters to get to the village, and at the sound of intruders, the roosters began to crow and woke Giuliano and his guard!
Other story tells about black rooster and why it became symbol of Chianti. Florence and Siena went through many bloody battles over who should rule the hills of Chianti. They decided that two horsemen should depart with first rooster crow from Siena and Florence and travel towards each other. Where the horsemen met the borders would be drawn. The Sienesi chose a white rooster and fed him well, hoping that it would crow with more determination and strength. The Florentines, instead, chose a black rooster and kept the poor bird hungry - hoping that a hungry rooster would get up and crow earlier. Indeed, the Florentines were right. Their rooster was up well before dawn crowing desperately in demand of food and their horseman started riding much before Siena's horseman.
The Florentine horseman made it to almost 12 kilometres outside the Siena walls before he was met by his counterpart. This claimed, practically, all of Chianti for Florence and established the black rooster as symbol of Chianti up to this day!
Our rooster is neither black nor ceramic but painted by our dearest friend Ekaterina Efimochkina. Initially, it was just a decoration on the wall, but very soon became our lucky charm and eventually transformed into logo.