A new food delivery service enters the Latvian market, offering meals prepared by leading chefs to be enjoyed at home

In recent years, ordering ready-made meals from cafés and restaurants for delivery to one’s home or office has become an almost indispensable part of everyday life for many people. With the restrictions brought about by the pandemic, the popularity of such services continues to grow rapidly, and this month a new food delivery service provider, Five Star, has entered the Latvian market to meet consumers’ desire to enjoy meals from fine restaurants even under the current circumstances. It offers a concept previously unseen in Latvia: freshly prepared meals by leading chefs, delivered quickly and to a high standard throughout the country.

The Five Star platform brings together leading figures in the catering industry, including Mārtiņš Sirmais (Ramen Riga), Lauris Aleksejevs (36. līnija), and Raimonds Zommers (Entresol), offering customers the opportunity to order meals prepared by chefs and create a special festive atmosphere at home. The extensive selection of freshly prepared dishes includes carefully selected steaks and seafood, as well as various salads, appetisers, soups, and desserts to suit every taste. The selected dishes are accompanied by instructions for serving them correctly, with the customer entrusted with the final stage of preparation, thereby ensuring the authentic flavour the dish would have when enjoyed at the restaurant itself. The main emphasis is placed on original, high-quality hot and cold dishes from the cuisines of various countries that are relatively simple to prepare.

Unlike other similar food delivery services, Five Star provides its services throughout Latvia on the same or following day. In addition, meals from different restaurants can be ordered at the same time for the same delivery fee. Particular attention is also paid to the quality of food delivery, guaranteeing a combination of the highest standards and competitive prices, which is one of the most important aspects of such a service. Within the next few months, the range of products available on the Five Star platform will also be expanded to include meals from other leading Latvian restaurants. In addition to food, in cooperation with leading bartender Andris Reizenbergs, customers can also order Lyre’s non-alcoholic alternatives to alcoholic beverages for cocktails, which have quickly gained widespread consumer approval and serve as an excellent addition to any meal. 

“The idea of creating a platform in this format emerged at the beginning of last year, before the first wave of the pandemic. Our service is an offshoot of an idea launched in 2015, when we were looking for a way to have a high-quality, healthy lunch while away from home amid the rush of everyday life, but all we encountered were the classic fast-food options. Through the Five Star platform, we want to make restaurant culture accessible to a wider public. Perhaps even those who are not accustomed to going to restaurants will gradually change their habits. People’s pace of life becomes more intense every year, and there is less and less time available; therefore, following current trends, we expect the role of various online services to continue growing in the future,” comments Five Star founder Kaspars Gulbis.

During the next stage of the Five Star service’s development, the opening of the first retail outlets for ready-made meals at various petrol stations in Riga is planned for the beginning of this summer, followed gradually by locations elsewhere in Latvia’s largest cities, where heavy traffic is observed. The “Restaurant on the Way” concept means that customers will be able to drive up to a service window and conveniently order their chosen food and drinks without leaving their cars. As with the Five Star online platform, the menus at these retail outlets will also be supplied by Latvia’s most acclaimed chefs, giving everyone the opportunity to enjoy carefully considered, high-quality breakfast, lunch, and dinner options either en route or upon arriving at their planned destination.

“Enjoying a meal at a restaurant is one of those life experiences that can add a touch of celebration even to an ordinary day. However, at a time when the whole world has paused its once-familiar opportunities for in-person leisure, we now have to try to create a festive atmosphere in our own homes. While relatively recently the idea of having restaurant-prepared food delivered might have seemed rather unrealistic, we too have now adapted to the prevailing situation and can see that this is a service highly valued by both regular and new customers. The main consideration in this process is, of course, the quality of the food served at the table, which must not differ from that provided at the restaurant itself. That is why we carefully assess our delivery partners and rely only on quality tested over time, raising the performance of the entire team to a new level,” says chef Mārtiņš Sirmais.

Further information about the range of freshly prepared meals by leading chefs, together with delivery options, is available on the website https://www.fivestar.lv/.