Catering & our food culture
From leaf to root and from nose to tail.
We offer catering for all events with our exceptional sustainable cuisine, both at Fotografiska and outside our venue, whether it's a conference, corporate event, or family celebrations.
Environmental Sustainability
Fotografiska is the contemporary museum of photography, art & culture. With honest and delicious food and an open-minded approach.Photography is an inclusive medium with the ability to amplify emotions, tell stories, and influence change. We believe that owning high-quality photographic art should be a privilege accessible to all. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience it. The culinary and beverage arts at Fotografiska are driven by the idea of sustainable enjoyment, providing both taste and wellness. Fotografiska Tallinn is the only establishment in Estonia to be recognized with the prestigious Michelin Green Star for two consecutive years (2022/2023).
Sustainability is one of our core values and a daily lifestyle. We want to share with our guests how to apply this in cooking, everyday choices, and event planning.
We are fortunate to be on this journey here in Estonia, where caring for nature is natural, and the skills of growing, preparing, and utilizing every ingredient wisely have been passed down from generation to generation. And how much smart recycling we have been able to initiate! This is evident from what is found on the tables to the employees' uniforms. The restaurant's vases and candleholders are made from old wine bottles, bread baskets and butter knives are from former Leibur baking racks, and glasses and cutlery are protected by bases and holders made from leather scraps.
Similar to the Japanese Kintsugi technique, we also revive broken dishes. Menus are printed on paper made from vegetable scraps, and employee shirts and chef jackets are also made from recycled fabric. With each new exhibition, we create a new space – painting walls and designing the ambiance. All that remains from previous exhibitions – whether half-empty paint pots, wall stickers, or paper carriers – find reuse in children's workshops and return to the house, for example, as Christmas decorations.
Smart Consumption
… starts with us. So, we consciously ensure that the majority of the raw materials we use are local, organic, and sustainably grown. This mindset is also supported by cultivating our own garden in Jõelähtme.
Regarding raw materials, we follow the seasons and ensure that nearly half of the menu in the restaurant and café is plant-based, even more in catering, to reduce the burden on the environment. It is important for us that all animal products we use come from selected farmers and are ethically raised. We want to know how the fish is caught and if 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, maintaining, for example, meadows. When we choose fish or meat, we buy the whole animal and use every part from nose to tail. What is not immediately used is preserved – pickled, fermented, cured, or smoked.
We prefer small producers who share the same values as us. Both sparkling and still table water at our events are free, clean filtered tap water – a simple way to eliminate packaging waste.
Greenery
In the restaurant on the sixth floor, we grow herbs, tomatoes, leafy greens, and keep bees on the rooftop garden. We use their honey in our kitchens for cooking, and we have also packaged it in jars for you to take home.
In the backyard of the café on the first floor and around the main entrance of the building, there are about fifty plant boxes with approximately 150 different species of plants, trees, and berry bushes. All this to admire the lushness of the garden in spring-summer-autumn and rejoice in the abundance of local greenery. In Jõelähtme, we cultivate our own patch of land, from which we harvest fresh produce and send the nutrient-rich compost back to the field from our house composter.
There is a noticeable amount of houseplants of all sizes and dimensions between the tables in the café and event hall and on the service counters. All this beauty on multiple floors is kept and cared for by Marit Mäesaar, the gardener at Pisirohtu, in spirit and profession.
Food Culture
In the restaurant, café, and catering, we adhere to the principle: "from leaf to root and from nose to tail" – that is, almost everything is utilized. We invent new clever ways every day to use every bit of the ingredients, and if we can't figure it out, we collaborate with those who can.
Sourdough bread baked by our bakers is not discarded when it's not sold but rather turned into flour for making new bread dough. The bar's mixologists are particularly resourceful and prepare special syrups for drinks, which are boiled down from the leftovers of freshly squeezed juice to banana peels.
In catering, we prioritize the principle of "the main thing is that nothing is left over," and this is made possible by collaborating with our in-house event organizer and kitchen. If, on rare occasions, such a situation still arises, our partner is the Food Bank, which transports food from where there is surplus to where there is a shortage.
All event catering in the house is done by our team from our own kitchen. Upon request, we also come out of the house. Our food is mainly domestic and plant-based. Together with nutrition specialists, we have developed a delicious, nutritious menu consisting mainly of plant-based choices, which can be supplemented with animal products if desired. For example, did you know that the environmentally friendly amount of meat on our daily menu would be 14g per person per day, but traditionally it's around 140-200g per meal?
We believe that by choosing a plant-based diet and reducing the consumption of animal products, we can collectively reduce the significant environmental impact of food choices on our planet. It is a sustainable choice that we can make both as individuals and as social groups to have the greatest and most immediate impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, global water consumption, and pollution rates to slow the degradation of the earth.