Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus Cuisine Moscow
RED SQUARE, 1
Cuisine: RussianAddress: Red Square, 1
Nearest metro station: Ploshchad Revolutsii, Okhotny Ryad
Telephone: (495) 925-36-00
Working hours: 12.00-0.00
Additional service: business lunch
Average bill: £20
Credit cards: American Express, Diners Club, Master/Eurocard, Visa
From the top floor of the National History Museum on the north side of Red Square, you can enjoy a meal as you gaze directly across the cobblestone expanse leading to St. Basil's Cathedral on the opposite end. The menu is appropriately Russian and traditional, including a re-creation of the "czar's menu" of a century ago. The emphasis is on fish and appetizers, though most dishes have a lighter touch than standard Russian restaurant fare. The delicate koulebiaka is a culinary feat of sturgeon blended with rice, cream, and spices, carefully baked inside a flaky pastry. The venison can be tough. The appetizer (zakuski) menu has several versions of fish or meat in aspic, and vegetarian options such as mushrooms on toast. Sample one of the home-brewed liqueurs such as kedrach, made with pine nuts - it's strange but satisfying. Musicians play traditional Russian stringed instruments some evenings; other evenings a soft jazz ensemble takes over.
CAFÉ PUSHKIN
Cuisine: RussianAddress: Tverskoi Bulvar, 26a
Nearest metro station: Pushkinskaya
Telephone: (495) 229-55-90
Working hours: 1st floor open 24 hours, top floors 12.00-0.00
Additional service:
Average bill: £45
Credit cards: American Express, Diners Club, Master/Eurocard, Visa
Perhaps Moscow's most sophisticated 24-hour restaurant, the three-story Cafe Pushkin has the feel of an 18th-century mansion but dates from the late 1990s. Each of the floors has a different thrust, with a cherry wood bar and well-lit cafe on the first floor, a more formal dining room on the second, and a decadent and breezy summer cafe on the top. The menu weighs a ton – there are both Russian and English versions - and the script is so flowery as to be unreadable at times. Pretty much anything listed is bound to be successful, though standouts are ukha, a creamy, spiced fish soup that manages to be both light and filling; as is the grilled sterlet with forest mushrooms. Prices are high - you're paying for the faux-pre-revolutionary atmosphere and top-quality service as well as the food. The vodka selection is impressive and impressively priced, and the hot chocolate and dessert selections offer good, low-budget options.
GODUNOV
Cuisine: RussianAddress: Teatralnaya Square, 5
Nearest metro station: Ploschad Revolutsii
Telephone: (495) 298-56-09
Working hours: 12.00-0.00
Additional service: free parking
Average bill: £20-30
Credit cards: American Express, Diners Club, Master/Eurocard, Visa
The Godunov Restaurant is located in Teatralnaya Square in front of the Bolshoy Theatre, close to the Metropol Hotel and Red Square. The halls of the restaurant are former refectory chambers of the 17th century. The Godunov Restaurant is fairly considered to range among the venues offering genuine Russian cuisine. The menu of the restaurant offers an extensive choice of dishes prepared according to old Russian recipes. The menu includes the famous Guriev porridge, various meat and fish delicacies, appetizers, vodka liqueurs, mushrooms, and so forth. The guests confess that the chef of the Godunov Restaurant created a real paradise for those who like and appreciate Russian cuisine. They appreciate tasty dishes, first-class service, large helpings and reasonable prices. Each evening the guests are entertained by Russian folk songs, dances, Gypsy performances, and so forth.
GRILYAZH
Cuisine: Russian, EuropeanAddress: Pyatnitskaya street, 1/2 building 1
Nearest metro station: Novokuznetskaya
Telephone: (495) 953-93-33
Working hours: 12.00-0.00
Additional service: banquets, take away service, hookah, free parking
Average bill: £35
Credit cards: American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard, Visa
The stylized grillwork at the entrance and the discriminating maitre would tell you right away to expect the best from this restaurant. Specializing in Italian and French inspired Russian cuisine, the food is sometimes as pretentious as the service, but overall it's a pleasing experience in fine dining. At the top of the otherwise bohemian Pyatnitskaya Street, it occupies a two-story mansion decked in Art Nouveau light fixtures and antique furniture. Russian executives like to hold banquets here, but it's also a good spot for a romantic interlude, with its soft lighting and exclusive atmosphere. The wine list is impressive. The tuna and salmon carpaccio with ginger and greens is a winning appetizer, and the duck breast with "poacher's" sauce makes a hearty main course. The borsch with garlic rolls is surprisingly better than the lobster bisque.
MU-MU
Cuisine: RussianAddress: Arbat street, 45/24; Myasnitskaya street, 14 and other multiple locations around the city
Nearest metro station: Smolenskaya; Lubyanka
Telephone: (495) 241-13-64; (495) 923-45-03
Working hours: 11.00-23.00
Additional service:
Average bill: £3-6
Credit cards: Not accepted
This popular self-service eatery offers a huge choice of Russian-style food at low prices. There are six restaurants throughout Moscow, and they are usually quite packed with students, office workers, families and tourists. A standard meal costs about £4, while a three-course dinner will be about £8 per person (with drinks). A good chance to try Russian specialities on a regular basis without breaking your budget.
YOLKI-PALKI
Cuisine: RussianAddress: Neglinnaya street, 8/10; Novy Arbat, 11 (Valdai) and other multiple locations around the city
Nearest metro station: Kuznetsky most; Arbatskaya
Telephone: (495) 628-55-25; 291-68-88
Working hours: 11.00-23.00
Additional service:
Average bill: £6
Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard
A popular chain with restaurants throughout the city. The food is moderately priced, although not as good as at the more expensive places. The salad-bar where you can try all Russian specialities is only £6.
This restaurant is very popular among locals, the interior is made in a kitsch way, and the music is Russian pop and folk songs.
SHINOK
Cuisine: UkranianAddress: Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 2
Nearest metro station: Ulitsa 1905 Goda
Telephone: (495) 255-08-88
Working hours: 24 hours
Additional service:
Average bill: £20-30
Credit cards: American Express, Master/Eurocard, Visa
Among the most exclusive of Moscow's themed restaurants, Shinok is a tangle of juxtapositions. Its genre is a Ukrainian farmhouse, with a multilayered dining hall decorated with haystacks, chicken cages, and the occasional goat, and wait staff adorned as milkmaids and cowhands. Yet its prices are purely urban, and its clientele is decked out in Armani and Dior. Service is efficient. The chefs present elegant, satisfying versions of countryside standards such as borscht with garlic rolls, potato-stuffed dumplings (vareniki) and suckling pig. The cold sorrel soup (zelyoniye shchi) is both tangy and filling, and the egg-and-spice-stuffed carp is mouth-watering. The wines are rather overpriced; stick to beer or a simple dry Georgian wine. This is a good splurge option, though count on taking a taxi home since it's a long way from the metro - or even better, order a taxi in advance to avoid the overcharging cabbies lying in wait outside.
TARAS BULBA
Cuisine: UkrainianAddress: Petrovka, 30/7; Pyatnitskaya, 14
Nearest metro station: Smolenskaya; Novokuznetskaya
Telephone: (495) 200-6082
Working hours: Sun-Thurs 12.00-0.00 Fri-Sat 12.00-2.00
Additional service:
Average bill: £6-7
Credit cards: Master card, Visa
When opened in the late 1990s, this chain of Ukrainian restaurants quickly became a citywide hit among busy middle-class Russians looking for a taste of the countryside. The decorators went a bit overboard on the Ukrainian country kitsch, but the food is hearty and reliable and free of pretension, and the atmosphere is cheery. You can recognise the restaurant by the doormen, who are extravagantly decked out as Cossacks all seasons of the year. The name comes from a story by Nikolai Gogol, a tragic and epic tale of an aging 18th-century warrior (Bulba) who sets off with his sons to join a Cossack band fighting for Ukrainian independence. The menu has plenty of meat and potatoes, but also several soups based on beets, cabbage, or forest greens. Ukrainian cooking makes heavy use of garlic, so if you're not a fan, let your server know. If you do like garlic, try the pampushki, garlic-infused buttery rolls.
DROVA (LOGS)
Cuisine: RussianAddress: Myasnitskaya street, 24
Nearest metro station: Lubyanka, Chistiye Prudy
Telephone: (495) 925-2725
Working hours: 24 hours
Additional service:
Average bill: £7 for a buffet
Credit cards: American Express, Diners Club, Master/Eurocard, Visa
This chain of all-you-can-eat Russian eateries has helped bury the 2-hour lunch tradition. Moscow's workers dive into Drova at 13.00; load up on Russian coleslaw (kvashennaya kapusta), spicy red bean stew (lobio), and ground-beef kebabs; gulp down some tea; and are out the door by 13.30. With plenty of convenient locations around town, Drova is a good place for tourists to sample several Russian dishes risk-free. If you don't like something, go back and get something else. It's all included in the £7 price. The wood (fake and real) decor reflects its name, which means "logs" in Russian.
CORREA’SWHITE RUSSIA
Cuisine: Polish, Baltic, Belarusian, RussianAddress: Bolshaya Nikitskaya street, 14
Nearest metro station: Arbatskaya, Okhotny Ryad
Telephone: (495) 2294176
Working hours: 11.00-0.00
Additional service: business lunch, entertainment for children
Average bill: £15
Credit cards: Master Card, Visa, Visa Electron
The White Russia Restaurant specializes in Belarusian cuisine that perfectly combines Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Latvian culinary traditions. Dishes offered by the White Russia Restaurant offer pancakes, pies with various fillings, cheese cakes with raisins, crayfish necks, pickles, salted foods, fish and meat saltwort and so forth. Special place in Belarusian cuisine belongs to potato dish called "draniki". In the White Russia Restaurant the guests are offered over 30 types of "draniki", including those with salmon fish, mushrooms, red caviar, meat and cowberries. The assortment of drinks includes honey and berries' liqueurs, fruit drinks and kvass. The White Russia Restaurant is proud to offer unfiltered beer on tap that ranges among the best in Moscow. The best specialists in Belarusian cuisine are employers of the White Russia Restaurant. To underline national colour, the waiters wear Belarusian national costumes, and the menu features plenty of Belarusian names. The songs of well known music groups "Syabry" and "Pesnyary" entertain the guests of the restaurant.