250-seat Italian restaurant LaBocca opens in downtown Tallinn at a cost of 1.3 million euros

The Italian restaurant LaBocca opened its doors in the Golden Gate building in Tallinn’s Rotermann district on Friday. A total of 1.3 million euros has been invested in the new 250-seat eatery and its state-of-the-art technology by the entrepreneurs behind the Vapiano chain of restaurants. 

Gert Kerde, one of the owners of LaBocca, says the restaurant offers simple, fresh Italian dishes at a reasonable price and is designed for everyone. “It’s as perfect for workers on their lunch break as it is for families out for a meal together, and is as ideally suited to business lunches as it is to romantic dinners,” he said. “It covers 670 square metres, so there’s plenty of space for everyone. The kitchen technology makes cooking really fast, too – for example, we can bake 200 pizzas an hour.” 

Kerde and his business partners entered the restaurant business in 2007 when Vapiano was brought to Estonia. The chain was built up over 15 years, expanding to Lithuania and Finland as well, before being sold to the Apollo Group in 2019. Since then, the entrepreneurs behind it had been looking to come up with an interesting new restaurant concept in Estonia, which over a period of three or four years evolved into LaBocca. 

“We got the idea from a casual-style restaurant we saw somewhere, which served these huge pizzas and plates of pasta,” Kerde explained. “Looking at the way the market was developing, we wanted to offer a simple and cosy but at the same time cool and modern Italian tavern-style dining experience. And it goes without saying that the Golden Gate building caught our eye – there’s no better location in Tallinn.” 

The owners’ intention, says Kerde, is to launch the first LaBocca restaurant in the Estonian capital and then to expand the franchise to other locations. 

The restaurant is not only the first in the country to offer 45 cm pizzas, but is also unique for providing the option of two toppings. 

LaBocca’s kitchen appliances and technology allow it to produce everything in-house and therefore to offer truly fresh Italian food. Its world-class machinery speeds up the cooking process and guarantees large-scale production capacity: its pizza oven can bake a single pizza in just three minutes, allowing the restaurant to make 2000-3000 pizzas a day. Moreover, all food in the restaurant is prepared right in front of diners.