The Seaside Caf Metropolis

by Antanas Sileika

Overview

In this comic Cold War novel, Canadian restaurateur Emmet Argentine is trapped in Khrushchev-era Vilnius, Lithuania, under the tyranny of two equally formidable forces: the Soviet Union, and his staunchly socialist mother.

Raised in the kitchens of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel, Emmet’s got a talent for hospitality that catches the attention of a high-ranking architect, who hires him to helm a magnificent new restaurant. Under Emmet’s direction, the Seaside Café Metropolis, though located neither by the sea nor in a major metropolitan area, attracts a colourful cast of bohemian artists, writers, and philosophers, including a visit from Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir — all while kgb operatives listen in from the basement via microphones in the bread baskets.

Through guile, wit, and charm, Emmet, his staff, and other restaurant regulars strive to make rich lives for themselves in the heart of the repressive Soviet regime, drawing warmth from good food, good humour, and even better company.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770868106
Publisher:	Cormorant Books
Publication date:	09/27/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Antanas Sileika is a Canadian author of six previous books of fiction, as well as two memoirs. His collection of short stories, Buying on Time, was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Toronto Book Award, and longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads in 2016. His books have repeatedly received starred reviews from Quill & Quire and have been listed among the one hundred best books of the year in The Globe and Mail. One of his novels, Provisionally Yours, was adapted into both a feature film and a television serial in Europe. He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

What People are Saying About This

Joe Kertes

“Antanas Sileika is a born storyteller. He turns the postwar Vilnius café of the title, with the Soviet menace all around it and even in it, into an oasis of civility — good food, good music, good wit, good poetry and, above all, hope — hope for better days to come. Stories flow through the café, even if they are sad or tragic, like a cleansing river. The author succeeds in making us want both to visit and to flee his fictional establishment, in equal measure — that alone is an achievement to be enjoyed and celebrated.”

Editorial Reviews

Emmet Argentine is a Canadian restaurateur tapped to open a different kind of dining spot in Khruschev era Lithuania. His flair for food service in a time when Soviet sensibilities are perhaps thawing just a bit make for a comic novel with culinary know how, dry wit and a smart take on that which can bring disparate peoples together. Garty Shteyngart has make a career covering this beat, but Antanas Sileika does it as well or better. This was a delight, and one of my favourites for the year.

David Worsley

A delicious peek into the world of spies, artists and food at the fringes of the Soviet Union. Sileika’s prose is wry and wise, and conjures up a place and time that glimmers like a bittersweet memory.

Trevor Cole

Antanas Sileika has invented a new genre: the culinary picaresque. Throw in the Cold War, dissident shenanigans, an ideologue mother, knife-fighting love story, iron curtain Bohemians, and more than half a dozen traditional and innovative Lithuanian recipes and you get a sense of the many flavors Sileika blends to perfection in this sad, funny, insightful, propulsive banquet of a novel. This is a rare dish served by a master chef.”

Tamas Dobozy