JOHN Chef's Hall

The pass belongs to Silis

At the pass, Kristaps Silis sets the evening's pace as Chef at JOHN Chef's Hall in Riga, where the room looks directly into the kitchen. The role asks for more than menu authorship. Silis carries the tempo of service, the sequence of plates, and the discipline of a tasting menu built for close range. He has described the position in terms of creative freedom, not as license to drift, but as a way to make his own impressions, tastes and experiences legible through food. That matters in a room where chefs present the dishes themselves and where the guest sees the pass as part of the meal, not as backstage. JOHN Chef's Hall opened in summer 2024 inside A22 Hotel, separate from the sister restaurant JOHN, and earned 1 MICHELIN Star in the 2025 Guide. The recognition belongs to this address, and to the compact method Silis and his team have put in motion here.

Latvian products at tasting-menu scale

The program is modern Latvian fine dining in tasting-menu form, with local sourcing at the center and a curated wine program built around the food. The kitchen works with seasonal Latvian ingredients, including produce drawn from wild sources and partner gardens, then sets them inside a modern frame without cutting away their origin. Published examples show the register: pikeperch with dill and rhubarb, strawberries three ways with lemon verbena ice cream, poached sturgeon, venison striploin. These are not casual signatures lifted into luxury by garnish. They are products put under pressure by sequence, temperature, texture, and timing. The room's scale sharpens that work. JOHN Chef's Hall is a 20-seat experience overlooking the kitchen pass, so the cooking has to withstand proximity. A sauce is seen as it lands. A chef's explanation becomes part of the course. Wine pairings sit beside the menu rather than above it, chosen to follow the seasonal line of the plates and the measured pace of the room.

A quiet room facing the bench

The room is intimate, formal, and quiet enough for the pass to set the sound. Guests sit with a view into the kitchen, and the service moves with the kind of restraint that suits a small tasting menu restaurant: warm, professional, close to the hands. The setting takes its tone from elegant simplicity rather than spectacle, which gives the food less to compete with. That restraint is useful. When a chef steps out to present a dish, the explanation can stay practical, tied to product, season, and method. The A22 Hotel setting adds another layer without crowding the work; the building is the former American Embassy, and the restaurant's name carries the John F. Kennedy connection through the house. Still, the lasting image is nearer to the bench: a plate leaving the pass, a Latvian ingredient named plainly, and Silis's team standing close enough to answer for the venison striploin.