Q. Who would be a big enough friutloop to start with café no.11 out of 10?

Though this café is not in my top 10 and probably not really in my top 11 either is still deserves a mention. We are talking about Premjera. Premjera is a road side café in the Telsiai Region on between Palanga and Šiauliai.

It is a cool cafe, but it only really gets the thumbs up for one reason and that is they make a very good cappuccino. Now you international readers may be a little confused as to why just having a very good cappuccino would get a cafe up to no. 11.

The answer is Lavazza! Though Lavazza produce an excellent coffee powder, the company that trains people how to make the coffee here in Lithuania seems to have no idea on what people like, or at least on what I like. Lavazza likes foam and hates heat. Your average Lavazza cappuccino is half a cup of warmish brownish liquid with half a cup of foam and often no stinkin garnish on top. At the risk of sounding like Dr Niles Crane, it is just not right!

However at Premjera if you ask for a cappuccino, the coffee comes out hot enough to need one of those little warnings on the cup, with just under a finger thickness of foam and a splattering a chocolate on top. Well done Premjera.

In my not so humble opinion the only other place that you can get a good cappuccino in Lithuania is at the Latvian chain called Double Coffee. I kind of admire this chain because they have obviously spent a lot of time at Star Yucks, learnt as much as they could, which is almost everything and then came back to the Baltic’s and emulated it. I mean well done for helping keep one of the big horrible destructive coffee chains out of Lithuania, too bad you are trying to do the same thing. Well done for having a great cappuccino, too bad for having terrible food. I am sorry but I will continue trying to support local businesses and independent cafes.

Anyhow back to Premjera, because it does more than just coffee right. As far as Lithuania goes it is a relatively traditional place. It has always given us very good service and it is not expensive. In winter it has an open fire and bearable music. And in summer it has a fantastic outdoor seating area far enough away from the highway to not be bothered by the traffic.

The downsides are; if you do not like Lithuanian food, you’re screwed, the toilets are not usually clean and the cafe can be hard to find when travelling west.

I give the café 6 out of 10. It is a very un-me café, but has a very good cappuccino . Whenever we are driving past and need a stop, will definitely be my first choice. It may even be worth visiting for a summer drive.

The photo is taken in their garden, not the best photo, maybe having our eyes open would make it nicer. But it is the best that I could do, I could not find any photo’s of the cafe on the internet.