Markus & Co

Markus & Co
Antokolskio 11, Vilnius
tel. 262 31 85

Tucked down a little side street a few doors away from the Stikliai Hotel in the Old Town of Vilnius is a fun little restaurant / pub called Markus & Co. Generally I found the food in Vilnius of a generally pretty poor standard, but this was one of the better places that we ate.

I think you would class Markus & Co as more pub than restaurant in appearance with a small bar at one end, lots of wood panelling and little nooks and corners with tables dotted around. On Thursday and Friday nights an excellent pianist tickles out some pretty good jazz numbers and the whole atmosphere is rather collegiate and clubby.

Markus & Co is ‘famous’ for its steaks and whilst its menu did feature a number of different cuts of steaks in different sauces there were quite a few other items on the extensive menu.

I started with a shrimp crepe which was rather heavy on the dill and the crepes themselves were about 2 or 3mm too thick. Still they were actually quite tasty, despite the doughy overload, and the marie-rose type sauce in the middle was okay.

I order a fillet steak to be cooked rare, with French fries and vegetables. Well, the steaks were certainly rare and whilst I don’t have a problem with that at all they would be best described as ‘blue’. The steaks are marinaded in a secret spice mixture (obviously secret because the waiter wouldn’t tell me) and are really pretty tasty. All the beef is locally reared and despite not being hung at all from what I could gather, were still very tender.

From what we saw in Vilnius portions are generally big, very big in fact and I struggled to finish both the starter and main course and I am not known for my reticence when it comes to putting away vast quantities!

The wine list offered a very good, very wide international selection and we settled on a Oyster Bay pinot noir which was lovely. In fact it was so nice that we had another. And then one more just to be sure.

Stumbling out into the daylight after a good lunch and wandering around the very pretty streets of Old Town Vilnius we decided that life was pretty good all things considered, and I suppose that is part of what you expect out of a good lunch.

My home work on Vilnius threw up a number of other dining recommendations but sadly this one was the only one on the list that we managed. Visitors to Vilnius should also check out the following:

Lockys
Hazienda
Freskos