From Latvian Harvests to a Saudi Summer, Chef Elizabete Steina finds her flavour at Four Seasons Riyadh

On the latest High Tea at Obaya Lounge, summer arrives in miniature: a Kleija ice cream sandwich, Muhallabia with mango and passion-fruit mamool, arranged on a stand inspired by Riyadh’s skyline.

Outside, the city is deep in summer. Inside the Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh, Chef de Cuisine Elizabete Steina has translated the season into a tea service built around the flavours people reach for when temperatures rise.

“On this one, I have to say the story, ‘Summer,’ came first, then the flavours of the Saudi summer,” she says. Her previous High Tea, Blooming Soirée, centered on Taif rose and flowers. This time, she considered what locals like to eat in summer and what is in season. “Of course, in summer, you must have ice cream,” she says.

The menu is a distinctly Riyadh idea, but the chef behind it has taken a considerably longer route to get here: a childhood spent among gardens and harvests in Latvia, culinary training in Switzerland, eight years working in Australia and, since 2023, a new chapter at Four Seasons Riyadh.

Steina's move to Saudi Arabia was not a spontaneous one. The idea first took shape in Australia in 2018, when her partner introduced her to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the changes it was expected to bring to the country.

“It all started back in Australia in 2018, if not earlier, when my partner introduced me to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, MBS’s footprint into the world, and the change that was coming,” she says. “We saw that there were going to be a lot of opportunities in hospitality for me, not only in Riyadh, but also in new projects such as NEOM, the Red Sea, and The Line. It all seemed so futuristic and dream-like as described.”

The plan had time to take shape during COVID-19.

“So, during COVID-19, we had enough time to come up with a plan. As I look back, I remember how thrilled I was when I received an answer from Four Seasons Riyadh.”

For all the futuristic language surrounding Saudi Arabia’s hospitality expansion, Steina arrived with a much older set of lessons already ingrained in the way she cooks.

Much of that story begins in the Latvian countryside, where Steina spent her childhood with her grandparents. Her strongest food memory is not a particular dish, but a season of work that stretched from summer into early autumn.

“It’s harvest time, throughout the summer until late September, collecting berries, clearing the garden of weeds, and harvesting vegetables for winter, later pickling and making preserves,” she says.

As a child, she was not immediately enchanted by the routine.

“At first, I was resistant; which child likes to spend their summer like this?”

She eventually found ways to make the work more appealing, whether that meant eating some of the berries herself or turning potato fields into a small insect-hunting expedition: “like picking berries, one for me and a few in the basket, or collecting bugs from potato leaves.”

Only later did she understand what those summers had given her: an awareness of agriculture, produce and the journey food takes before it arrives at the table.

That connection to fresh produce has travelled with her to Riyadh, even though the ingredients available - and the environment in which they are grown - are very different.

“Fresh produce is what people value here as well. In that sense, the difference is just the ingredients that are available.”

Steina does not attempt to reproduce Latvian cooking in Saudi Arabia. Instead, some of the habits she developed early - preserving, working with produce and paying attention to the relationship between an ingredient and its preparation - have become part of her cooking language.

“Pickling, curing, and smoking come naturally to me,” she says, as does working with “dill, buckwheat, and sour cream.”

For Steina, technique is ultimately there to support the ingredient rather than compete with it.

“But at the end, you want those ingredients to be the rockstars of the dish or concept, and that happens when the ingredient and preparation method are hand in hand.”

Before Riyadh came Lucerne, where Steina learned that working in a kitchen was as much about the choreography of service as it was about cooking.

“At B.H.M.S. Lucerne, we were on duty to cook our daily meals as culinary students, and 1-2 times a week we also had to greet and serve our fellow students and teachers, so we learned about the sequence of service.”

It is a lesson that has stayed with her, particularly during busy periods.

“This helps me better understand the struggles during busy service periods and find solutions on how to help both the kitchen and service.”

Australia gave her another type of education: scale.

Steina spent eight years there, working across major events including the Australian Open, where the romance of cooking gave way to the practical realities of feeding large numbers of people.

“At the end, it’s all about numbers, as in portion control.”

Preparation for an event of that scale could begin at least a month in advance. Whether food was destined for a VIP stall or a takeaway outlet, portions had to be planned and ready, while dietary requirements had to be accounted for alongside everything else.

It is a useful experience for a chef now producing an elaborate High Tea, where the finished presentation may look delicate and effortless, even as the kitchen is managing precise quantities, timings and consistency across dozens of individual components.

“Since I decided to move to Australia, I had a goal to get as much experience as I could. It goes for everything: cuisines, ingredients, styles of cooking, and catering.”

In Riyadh, those experiences have begun to converge.

“Now I find it surprising how easily it comes to balance the foods and flavours from my journey and background in the High Tea Set.”

Rather than naming a single signature dish, Steina points to the High Tea itself as the part of her work in which she is most invested.

“I am invested in our High Tea offering, which changes every 2-3 months.”

Each edition becomes an opportunity to build a new story. The current one is summer, with flavours and ingredients chosen around the season and local preferences.

The menu includes a Kleija ice cream sandwich and Muhallabia with mango, taking familiar flavours and translating them into the small, composed format of a High Tea.

“On the current set, it was about getting the right consistency for the passion fruit mamool filling.”

An earlier menu presented an even more stubborn technical challenge.

“I remember a while ago we had crystal bread in one of the savoury items. It took a lot of patience and willpower.”

That patience is part of the less visible work behind a High Tea. The finished set is designed to look light, precise and almost decorative; getting there requires repetition, adjustment and the willingness to keep working at a component until it behaves as it should.

For Steina, the ultimate measure of success is not necessarily the compliment delivered at the table.

“I’d consider it a compliment if they discussed their meal on their way home or the next day at work,” she says. “To serve something good that takes up space in our memory in this busy time is meaningful.”

That idea of memory brings the story back to the beginning.

A Latvian childhood taught Steina about berries, vegetables, harvests and preserving food for winter. Switzerland taught her the sequence of service. Australia taught her how to think about food at scale. Riyadh has given those accumulated experiences a new set of ingredients, seasons and flavours to work with.

The tea stand may borrow its shape from Riyadh’s skyline, but the influences on it are much more scattered: Latvian gardens and preserves, Swiss service, Australian event kitchens and, now, the flavours of a Saudi summer.

Steina has spent her career collecting techniques, ingredients and experiences from different places. On this High Tea, they finally share the same stand.