one of the highlights of the annual showcase festival tallinn music week is its gastro-focus sister festival, tmw tastes, which takes place across the quite outstanding portfolio of excellent restaurants in estonia’s capital. coinciding with this year’s edition, the quirkily magical umami in mustamäe, tallinn’s first large district, celebrated the launch of its own illustration gallery (curated by multitalented artist marit ilison) with a one-off dinner event that showcased more than a dozen courses inspired by artworks on display (roadtrip, ryan chapman | poolparty, triin valvas | sweet space, elina kasesalu) in the wooden house’s little staircase.

following the roadtrip serving of a bunch of cute bao burgers (paneer from kalamatsi dairy) with umami french fries and a lighthearted celeriac-rucola salad with nuts, the dinner really kicked into gear when it turned to the poolparty dishes: avocado and crab, calamari salad, cauliflower risotto with cod cheeks (a true discovery!), bbq’ed octopus, oven-baked pumpkin with yoghurt and pesto, bell pepper letcho – the dishes just kept coming, finished off by the sweet space-inspired desert, warm banana with blue mint icecream…