Goodbye Piccolo Canopi and sėkmės

You’ve probably gathered from my last post that we like our food in Lithuania. And one of our favourite places was the little cafe round the corner from the Shakespeare Hotel in Vilnius, Piccolo Canopi. I hadn’t been to Vilnius for a couple of years but a fellow blogger posted a review in February this year so I knew it was still there.

The cafe was opened in October 2010 by Tadas and Karolina Zukauskais and it coincided with Tadas’s birthday. So as I was there in October I thought I’d pop in and wish him happy birthday as my colleague did on a previous trip when I couldn’t make it.

But it wasn’t there! Gone. Replaced by a linen shop.

The lovely lady who ran the shop, Ūla, didn’t know where they had gone. But she was happy to tell me that she and her Ukrainian husband Vitaly were planning to move to the UK. So everyone’s moving.

Wherever you have gone , Tadas, Karolina and the twins, Good luck for the future. I enjoyed your lovely restaurant and appreciated your kindness.

Piccolo Canopi

Great to see it’s still going strong after 5 years (see my posts on it).

When I’m in Vilnius I stay round the corner at the Shakespeare Hotel so I’ll be there on my next trip later this year

hello vilnius

Great food. Cozy interior. Slow & easy. It all comes together in Piccolo Canopi, the smallest restaurant I’ve ever been to. Definitely a hidden gem of the Vilnius old town.

Tucked away in the narrow Bernardinu gatve, the place is so discreet that we missed it the first time we came. Look for the carved, wooden horse above the entrance- it used to be an antique shop and the new owners kept the sign. Inside: two small rooms & an open kitchen. We counted four or five tables and one owner managing it all: waiting on tables, cooking your meal right in front of you, washing the dishes. Feels like you’ve just been invited over for dinner at a friend’s house.

There is a couple of starters, mains and desserts to choose from, written on a chalkboard menu on the wall . We had a first class, authentic homemade lasagne, a delicious caprese salad and… some pasta with butter…

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Happy Birthday Tadas

I posted the other day about Piccolo Canopi on Bernadiniu street near the Shakespeare Hotel. I also mentioned it was Tadas’s birthday. As I didn’t make the trip to Vilnius this month I asked my colleague to call in and wish him a happy birthday. He dropped off a card and a bottle of wine and here’s the evidence (courtesy of KindaDukish).

Happy Birthday Tadas!

Happy Birthday Piccolo Canopi (and Tadas)

On our visits to Vilnius over the last few years my colleague and I have stayed at the Shakespeare Hotel on Bernadiniu Street, just off the bottom end of Pilies Street in the Old Town. And we can’t recommend it highly enough.

A couple of years ago, as we wandered out of the hotel along Bernadiniu street towards Uzupis, we noticed a new restaurant, Piccolo Canopi, just a couple of minutes from our hotel.

We called in to check it out and there were Tadas and Karolina, the young couple who owned it, happy to tell us the origins of the restaurant which had been featured in the local press as the restaurant which cost almost nothing to set up.

They did it as a project and it was successful so they kept it going.

It’s not a large restaurant and doesn’t sell alcohol but what it does is serve fresh food made from scratch and freshly squeezed juice.

The menu varies and the last time we ate there in June 2013 they’d just re-opened at lunchtime (having taken time out to produce twins).

They had also started opening for breakfast that very week.

It’s a great place to eat, fresh food at reasonable prices. Perfect for small parties it seems particularly popular with women.

And Tadas and Karolina are the nicest people you could hope to meet. A couple of years ago when I was recuperating from a car accident I limped in feeling sorry for myself and although they had finished serving they gave me a drink and even offered to give me a lift if I needed to go anywhere.

So happy third birthday “Little Hooves” (and there is a story about where the name came from but I don’t want to embarrass Karolina) and happy birthday Tadas!