Jokes apart, there’s more to Russian cuisine than vodka and mayo-infused salads. Since eating local is part of every great travel experience, here we profile Moscow restaurants where you can try authentic Russian food at its best.
Chestnaya Kukhnya (Honest Kitchen)
Cafe, Restaurant with Rooms, Russian, European, $$$
Elegantly spread over two floors, this cosy family restaurant invites you to go on a pleasant gastronomic journey into home-style Russian cuisine. The carefully selected menu, local ingredients, friendly service and the place’s relaxed ambience have already built a dedicated following.
An atmospheric Russian-style cafe, located right in Moscow’s centre, LavkaLavka derived from the city’s hippest farm market. The cafe inherited high quality ingredients and a new approach to old recipes: be sure to try the mushroom and cheese soup and pork flank steak.
A delightful mix of colorful and cosy, Varavara Cafe first entices you with unconventionally bright interiors. Then comes the food, lovingly prepared in the cafe’s open kitchen, which absolutely lives up to the beautiful design surrounding it. As Varvara Cafe focuses on the new Russian cuisine, this is your chance to try traditional dishes with a surprising twist.
Designed by Moscow’s celebrity chef, Konstantin Ivlev, the restaurant menu features local ingredients and traditional recipes. So if you feel like having a traditional Russian meal and want it to be elaborately prepared and impeccably served, come to Esenin Cafe and opt for olivier salad with smoked wild salmon and caviar, cabbage rolls stuffed with rabbit and the obligatory dressed herring.
This beautiful cousin of the famous Pushkin Café taps into culinary legacy of pre-Revolutionary Russia. Matryoshka’s menu features simple dishes, which may still seem exotic to modern-day foodies: Valaam shchi (traditional cabbage soup) with mushrooms, vinaigrette salad with baked vegetables and pickled mushrooms, rack of lamb with kasha and four varieties of mini-pies.
Located right near the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, this is a cosy city cafe with a predictably theatrical aesthetic. Delicious food, a relaxed atmosphere and its proximity to the famous music venue are the reasons it gets crowded on weekends.
Located on the 2nd floor of the Himeney shopping centre, this restaurant is favored for its cosiness and extraordinary food. As the name implies, the restaurant’s main focus is mushrooms – prepare to see them in more or less every dish, desserts included. Mushrooms selection varies from month to month, depending on the season.
This is a popular Russian-style self-service cafe chain, where you can choose from a wide assortment of dishes and drinks. Located at the fourth floor of the Central Children’s Store and generously decorated with greenery, this cafe is perfect both for a quick bite and dinner with friends.
Lavish interiors, gourmet food and pleasantly laid-back atmosphere, counterbalance a slightly higher price-range. Oblomov is unapologetically traditional: pickles are homemade, most food here is cooked in a Russian stove and on Fridays they have tea parties with a samovar.
A classy restaurant with a twist: an open kitchen. It is the first thing all visitors see and is a playground for guest celebrity chefs. The invited stars leverage their robust techniques and experiment with Russian ingredients, delivered from 15 regions of the country: from Kursk pork and Murmansk halibut, to Bryansk veal and Tver asparagus.
