Max Cekot Kitchen:
A Gastronomic Theatre

The restaurant is located in an industrial area of Riga, in Torņakalns, in a brick building from 1911. Once a timber processing plant and later a rapeseed oil factory, today it is a unique space where history meets innovation. Chef Max Cekot and his team personally restored the building, carefully preserving as many original features as possible—such as the striking spiral staircases—planted live pine trees, built a greenhouse, and even designed custom tableware in which the dishes are served. Every detail was considered to create full immersion into the culinary arts.

The gastronomic journey at Max Cekot Kitchen unfolds over two floors and is divided into several stages. It begins with appetizers and aperitifs in the restaurant’s lounge on the ground floor. Then, guests ascend the elegant spiral staircase to the spacious dining hall on the second floor—a pleasantly austere room with massive wooden tables, tall windows, and rough timber logs arranged in a row at the center of the space, all centered around the open kitchen. This is where the main performance takes place—the serving of the core dishes.

Finally, after a brief behind-the-scenes tour of the restaurant, the evening concludes with a Petit four in another cozy space, this time evoking the atmosphere of a gentlemen’s club. The walls are adorned with paintings by Max Cekot himself.

The cuisine at Max Cekot Kitchen is modern and entirely chef-driven, built around local seasonal ingredients. The menu changes every two months, offering something truly unique each time. This means that once you try a dish here, you’re unlikely to encounter it again.

Throughout the evening, guests can watch the chefs work in the open kitchen, and the chefs themselves present each dish, sharing the story and ingredients behind it. For the most discerning guests, there is the Chef’s Table—an exclusive seating area right in the kitchen, allowing you to witness every moment of the dinner preparation.

Max Cekot Kitchen also has its own garden, where the team grows fresh herbs and edible flowers to use in their dishes and to experiment continuously with new flavors and pairings.

A Conversation with Max Cekot

Over the course of the evening, you mentioned your family several times—your grandfather, your father, your mother (among the petit fours there’s even a honey cake with cranberries, a nod to your mom’s signature dessert). It seems like your love of cooking has a deeply personal, family-driven story behind it?

Absolutely—a huge one. Since I was a child, I loved seeing how people reacted to the things I made. I’d cook something and my mom’s friends would try it and be amazed: “Where are these flavors coming from?” And these were experienced women—they’d tried everything. I think the thing was, I always wanted something different, something new. I got bored with my mom’s cooking (though, to be fair, she baked amazing buns).

I wasn’t a great student in school—my attention constantly jumped from one thing to another. But in cooking, it was the opposite: you can fully focus on quality, on technique, and do things quickly. You just get in there and make something. And then, you get to eat the result right away. Also, I really love eating. And yes, it’s definitely tied to family, to childhood, to our story, to holidays and festive meals. Sometimes we forget that and chase after some kind of cosmic cuisine.

But for me, it’s always been simple: food is happiness. I honestly believe that most of the world’s problems could be solved with food. I mean, think about it—when you’re hungry, you hate everyone. But when you’re full… I’ve never seen a person who was full and still angry. That kind of magic has always fascinated me—in the kitchen, you’re like a rockstar.

So yes, my love of cooking came first because I’m genuinely good at it, and second because I love sharing that happiness.

And the result of this passion for food is Max Cekot Kitchen?

I’ve always experimented a lot. But before I turned 20, I was scared. I wanted to play guitar, and people said, “You have no ear for music.” I wanted to draw, and they said, “Drawing’s not your thing.” It was always like that. I wanted to be a chef, and the response was just, “Well, Maxim, just be a chef.”

Over the years, I helped build many restaurants. But this one—Max Cekot Kitchen—is truly mine. My wife Natasha fell in love with what I do and supported me completely.

Initially, Max Cekot Kitchen was supposed to be a pop-up. We only used my name so that people would know where to find me—at some point, I just got tired of explaining that I’m “over here, in Torņakalns.”

More than anything, I needed to understand who I was. To do that, I had to create a space where I could create freely.

And at Max Cekot Kitchen, we really can do whatever we want. That “whatever we want” currently looks like this (he gestures—editor’s note). We work a lot, we try to communicate our concept: we’re not just about “having a meal”—there’s a sense of theatricality to the whole thing.

At Max Cekot Kitchen, everything is open—the kitchen, the fridges, the ingredients. And everything changes quickly: ingredients that are here today might not be here tomorrow. A dish that’s on the menu today might not exist tomorrow—I’ll have changed it.

In a few months, we’re releasing a book. It will tell the full story of this place, including archival material about the building itself.

How did you end up here, in this building?

I was looking for a place where I would simply feel good. I walk in, and I feel the space. You see, this building dates back to 1911—it’s lived through three wars. Anything could have happened here. We did our research, looked into everything—and we couldn’t find a single record of anything tragic occurring in this place. There’s only one spot where a shell hit the building—and even then, you can tell from the gray patch on that side of the wall.

People often say, “I don’t know why it feels so good here.” But the truth is, I didn’t do anything radical. I just painted the walls, really. And yet, no one wants to leave once they’re here.

To me, your restaurant always seemed like a bit of a closed world—beautiful food, artful presentation, an iconic chef, a refined space. Looking from the outside, you don’t quite understand what this place is really about.

You change the menu almost every month. With that kind of pace, how do you come up with and assemble the dishes?

In my head.

After 28 years in this profession, I can invent a dish without ever cooking it—I literally know how every ingredient tastes. My palate works like muscle memory. I can tell what’s in a dish with my eyes closed. It’s something I train every single day.

Usually, the process goes like this: I build the dish in my mind, like a painting. Then the team gathers the ingredients, we discuss what techniques to use—and only then do we bring it all together. The final result depends on many factors: the temperature, how the ingredients grew, or whether someone went overboard with the salt.

There are no strict rules—except one: don’t ruin the ingredients. Also: we strive for consistency in technique, but never in taste. We don’t make cheesecake, for instance. Why would we? That’s like watching the same movie over and over again. It’s boring.

Every Wednesday, when the restaurant is closed, we experiment. Actually, we’re experimenting all the time. Just today, I cooked three new grill dishes, simply because I had a relatively free day. In the summer, it’s even easier with the garden—you step outside, taste something… this flower, that flower… and suddenly an idea takes shape in your mind. I eat so many flowers!

We also go to markets ourselves—the Central Market, Kalnciema, all kinds of little ones. When I show up, everyone knows me by now: “that crazy chef.” I ride my motorcycle, zip off, taste something, ask for it to be delivered.

It feels like you’re constantly engaged in this intense, emotional, and intellectual creative process.

Really? Maybe. But I sleep well. If I stop, I die. I hate standing still.

Right now, we’re redoing the greenhouse. We’re getting ready to open a second restaurant—a bright daytime spot, à la carte, no theatrics, just good food. We’ve just finished the book. And in two months, we’ll launch our Wine Chef’s Table—where Uldis (our sommelier, Uldis Grigalis—editor’s note) will create a personalized wine selection for each guest.

Imagine this: a guest comes in, talks about their interests—and that same day, receives a curated pairing. There’s nothing like it in the Baltics yet. It’s called a sommelier table.

How did you put your team together? I imagine it must be hard to find people who share your passion for food. What qualities did you look for first?

It was a long and difficult process. This is actually the third team here.

At first, I brought in people I’d worked with for 12–13 years—all of them chefs in their own right. They grew fast. Everyone needs their own mountain to climb.

With the second team, we went for what I call the “rich chefs”—people who walk in saying, “Give me a million, I can do it all.” But that didn’t last long. The depth of knowledge wasn’t there, and the lack of international experience showed.

The third team we built from the ground up—young local talents. They joined us at 18, and now they’re 22, 23.
Daina, for instance, came from big pastry projects. I want her to become the first female Michelin-starred chef in Latvia. Give her a couple more years!

And what else do you look for—besides skills, of course?

I pay attention to values—how they see life, family, their own growth. In Latvia, people often go into cooking thinking that one day they’ll become a chef just by waiting for their moment. But in the places where I studied and trained, you have to prove you’re the best every single day.

What really matters to me is that spark in their eyes. We usually give people a three-day trial: on the first day they’re here as a guest, on the second they get a task, and on the third—they cook three dishes. Doesn’t matter if someone’s a total rookie or has a huge portfolio. I need to see how they feel taste.

Many dream of being chefs—until they join a real kitchen team. That’s when it hits: this isn’t baking a pie at home and getting compliments. This is hard, relentless work. Every single day.

I once saw Gordon Ramsay on TV and decided I wanted to work with him. I flew out, spent three days proving I was worth something. They said, “You don’t have enough experience.”

I said, “Give me your best guy—I’ll do better than him.” That’s how it works.

So, it’s possible to train your sense of taste? 

Of course.

At first, you think a Snickers is the best chocolate in the world. Then you realize—it’s just marketing and loads of sugar.

There’s a saying: “The moment a chef thinks they’ve tasted everything in the world, they might as well die.”

Whenever I taste something at a restaurant and can’t figure out all the ingredients—I instantly become a fan of the chef who created it.

To understand taste, you can’t stop. You have to keep discovering, keep sharpening your senses. I can identify about 56 different flavor profiles of black pepper alone. You can harvest it from the same tree five times, and it’ll be different each time.

And I love experimenting. Super-experimenting. A super-experiment is when a flavor hits you completely unexpectedly. Not everyone’s going to get it. Like—imagine meat that tastes like chocolate ice cream.

Right now, I can’t afford to put something that radical on the menu. Even though I could create dishes that blow people’s minds, only about 10% of guests are ready for that kind of thing.

Would you say your detailed explanations of each dish are a kind of preparation for those new flavors?

Sure, we could’ve just served a brioche with butter. But that’s boring. I eat that everywhere.

Why the pesto story? My son suggested adding it to the menu—every Sunday, we make it together. Kids love the process. Emotions—emotions are everything.

You can watch a performance, but if it doesn’t move you—that’s it. Nothing else will matter. Here, we do everything honestly. Chefs look guests in the eye when talking about the dishes. In summer, we go out to pick herbs an hour before opening. How could you lie after that?

Tell me about the Michelin star. What does it mean to you?

Stars aren’t the goal.

Three stars are essentially just a marker for the average person. One star means high quality. Two stars mean I’m willing to go off my route to visit that restaurant. And three stars—that’s something I’d like to see next to my name, as a confirmation of the level I’ve reached.

But the star we received means more than all three combined, because it carries so much significance—it will forever be the first for Latvia. In that sense, it’s a truly unique experience and achievement.