Catering & our food culture

We offer catering for all events in the building with our in-house team from our own kitchen. Upon request, we also cater events externally. We offer a delicious, nutritious, and mainly plant-based menu for events, which can be supplemented with animal products if desired.

Your event will be organised by a project manager from our in-house team, who will be your sole contact from inquiry to execution and will advise you on everything from technical solutions to the program and menu. We emphasize the importance of sustainability:

• Prefer perennial plants in pots and natural branches and grasses over single-use cut flowers. We have plenty of these in our own premises—come for a coffee and see for yourself.
• Use the floor-to-ceiling lighting available in the house to create ambiance instead of confetti, artificial snow, fireworks, and balloons —only if they are genuinely biodegradable.
• We do not use single-use straws or cutlery. Any tableware taken out of the house comes from a reusable tableware partner.
• Avoid covering the floor and stage with carpets. If necessary, ensure the carpet is reusable. Our stage is covered with numbered carpet modules that we regularly maintain. If temporary removal is needed, it must be agreed upon in advance and will be priced separately.
• Use stage screens for marketing messages, and create materials and photo walls that last longer than just one evening.
• Minimize packaging waste — we advise on waste sorting.
• We handle catering for all events ourselves, and our menus are primarily plant-based, with the option to add animal products.
• For gifts and tokens of appreciation, we recommend delicious treats and memorable experiences.

If you have ideas for creating ambiance and special effects not mentioned here, please inform us as early as possible so we can discuss their feasibility. Together, we will create the best solutions that meet your wishes and align with Fotografiska's values.

Sustainable Practices

Sustainability is one of our core values and is integral to our daily life and mindset. We aim to share with our guests how to apply this in cooking, everyday choices, and event planning.

We are fortunate in Estonia, where caring for nature is inherent, and the skills of growing, preparing, and wisely using every ingredient have been passed down through generations. This has enabled us to implement many clever reuse practices — from table settings to employee uniforms.

Our restaurant vases and candle holders are made from old wine bottles, bread baskets and butter knives from former Leiburi baking racks, and glasses and cutlery are protected by holders made from leather scraps. Similarly to the Japanese Kintsugi technique, we revive broken dishes. Menus are printed on paper made from vegetable waste, and staff shirts and chef jackets are made from recycled fabric.

With each new exhibition, we create new spaces—painting walls and designing atmospheres. Everything left from previous exhibitions—whether half-used paint cans, wall stickers, or paper materials—finds new use in children's workshops and returns to the house as Christmas decorations.

Smart Consumption

...starts with us. We consciously ensure that most of our ingredients are local, organic, and sustainably grown. This mindset is supported by cultivating our garden in Jõelähtme.

We follow seasonal availability for ingredients, ensuring that about half of the menu in the restaurant and café is plant-based, and even more in catering, to reduce environmental impact. We ensure that all animal products come from selected farmers and are ethically raised. We know how the fish is caught and that the eggs come from free-range chickens.

We prefer meat from small producers because these animals grow freely and are an important part of the ecosystem, such as maintaining alvars. When choosing fish or meat, we buy the whole animal and use every part from nose to tail. What isn’t immediately used, we preserve: salting, fermenting, drying, smoking. We prefer small producers who share our values.

Both sparkling and still water at our events is free of charge – using clean filtered tap water is a simple way to eliminate packaging waste.

Greenery

The rooftop garden of our 6th floor restaurant and the backyard of the ground floor café are rich in container plants. The selection of plants aims to be interesting, slightly different, yet lush and edible.

The rooftop garden features a mix of old, beloved flavors and new, interesting ones — home to over 170 different species and varieties, with several hundred plants in total. We grow herbs, tomatoes, leafy greens, and keep bees. We use the honey in our kitchens and package it in jars for you to take home.

Our backyard also hosts many useful plants that our chefs and bartenders use enthusiastically. There are over 100 different species and varieties, with about 460 plants in total, including trees, shrubs, perennials, and annual summer flowers and useful plants.

In Jõelähtme, we cultivate our own field, harvesting fresh produce and returning nutrient-rich compost from our house composter to the field. The café and event hall tables and service counters feature a noticeable number of houseplants in various sizes. All this greenery, spread over multiple floors, is maintained by Marit Mäesaar, a gardener at heart and by profession from Pisirohe.

Food Culture

In the restaurant, café, and catering, we follow the principle of “leaf to root and nose to tail,” meaning almost everything is used. We invent new ways to use every part of the ingredient and collaborate with those who know more when we run out of ideas.

The sourdough bread baked by our bakers doesn’t go to waste but is turned into flour to start a new cycle. Our bartenders are particularly inventive, making special syrups from leftover fresh juice pulp or banana peels.

In catering, we emphasize the principle “nothing should go to waste” during event planning, working closely with the kitchen. In the rare event of leftovers, we partner with Toidupank, which delivers surplus food to those in need.

We believe that by choosing a plant-based diet and reducing the consumption of animal products, we can collectively minimize the significant environmental impact of our food choices on the planet. This is a sustainable choice that individuals and social groups can make to have the most immediate impact on reducing carbon emissions, global water consumption, and pollution levels, aiming to slow down the degradation of the Earth.