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European Taste owners Adrian and Ligia Sava (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Sausages from European Taste (Photo by Jay Paul)
Most Americans are well-acquainted with the cuisines of western Europe, reveling in the joys of French pastries, Italian pastas and pizzas, German sausages, Spanish tapas. When it comes to the cooking of Eastern Europe, they are not only generally far less versed in its pleasures, but also in many instances not versed at all. If you’ve never given a thought to Romanian food before, let alone eaten it, you’re hardly alone.
European Taste, housed in Canterbury Shopping Center in western Henrico County and owned by the husband-wife team of Adrian and Ligia Sava, has a deliberately vague name but a pointedly specific mission: to showcase one of the most fascinating intersections of cuisine and culture in the world, a meeting ground watered and nourished by Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Greek, Bulgarian, German and French sources.
Take the restaurant’s signature dish, a traditional Romanian offering called mici. Even in a city loaded with great cased meats, these grilled skinless sausages — fashioned from a blend of beef, lamb and pork, seasoned with a cross-continental blend of spices including thyme, coriander, anise and paprika — are remarkable for their juiciness and savor.
Adrian makes the sausages himself, and he’s justifiably proud of his handiwork, recommending them to all first-timers. Otherwise the kitchen belongs to Ligia, a trained chemist (she worked at Philip Morris and the Chesterfield County Wastewater Laboratory) who produces a varied menu that includes sarmale, or tender stuffed cabbage rolls; a wonderful Hungarian goulash; crisp-coated schnitzel (veal and chicken options are available); and a rich tripe soup.
Since arriving in Richmond in 2005, Ligia’s urge to cook and connect with her past grew more intense, and in 2012, she and Adrian opened the restaurant. She continued to live a dual existence — chemist by day, chef by night — until she realized that she was going to have to give up one of her loves.
Recently, she quit working as a chemist and, doubling down on her culinary life, opened European Taste Bakery on North Harrison.
Many of these sweets are on offer at the restaurant. If you’re a first-timer, get the cremesh, a creamy vanilla pudding wrapped in flaky puff pastry, then settle in for a quick neck massage from Ligia, who, in addition to being a chef and a chemist, is a graduate of the American Institute of Massage.
“A surprise at the end of a home-cooked meal,” she says — a fitting reminder that restaurants are meant, above all, to restore us.
