Restaurants
We have selected 25 restaurants, which we have divided into five categories: Gastronomic, Business, Trendy, Budget and Personal Recommendations. The restaurants are listed alphabetically within these different categories, which serve as guidelines rather than absolute definitions of the establishments.

Restaurant prices are subject to VAT (18%), which is always included within the prices stated. A service charge may be included (around 10%), however, if it is not, it is common (although not obligatory) for diners to leave 5-10% tip. A crisp US dollar note goes much further than even roubles of the same value.

The restaurants below have been grouped into four different pricing categories:
$$$$ (over Rb2,000)
$$$ (Rb1,200 to Rb2,000)
$$ (Rb500 to Rb1,200)
$ (up to Rb500)
The prices quoted above are for an average three-course meal. They include VAT but do not include service charge, tip or drinks.

Where once there was a dearth of restaurants - or any food to be served in them - there is now a dazzling choice of top-quality cuisine that rivals any cosmopolitan city in the world. Haute cuisine however, goes hand in hand with haute couture in Moscow and restaurants will either operate a ‘democratichny' (to keep out hooligans) or ‘elitny' door policy otherwise known as ‘face control'.

Until this hostile and simplistic attitude develops into something a little less crude, there are a number of ways around this. For men, visiting the best of restaurants in jeans and jumper is not always a problem because the maître d' will usually regard them as the ones holding the credit cards. But don't push your luck with trainers - only proper shoes are acceptable. Women, on the other hand, are expected to look ultra-femine - a lot of make-up, high heels, etc. If not, you may be refused entry to certain ‘elitny' restaurants, bars and clubs. The easiest way around this is to book in advance.

Gastronomic

Barashka
Chic dining and Caucasian cooking do not often come hand in hand, but Barashka (little lamb) breaks the mould. Wooden varnished panels and grey slate pillars surrounding the minimalist but comfortable furniture hint at the origin of the food. The spiral staircase will sweep you downstairs to sample updated Azeri cooking, which bears more similarity to Greek food than other foods from the region. The balyk-shurpa (Caspian Sea sturgeon soup) is excellent as are the djushbara (lamb dumplings) and aryshta (chicken soup with noodles and meat balls).

Petrovka ulitsa 20/1
Tel: (495) 200 4714.
Price: $$$
Café Pushkin
Dine out in 19th-century style as if the 1917 revolution never happened. The Pushkin's food and service are impeccable, with prices to match. The solyanka (creamy cabbage soup) and the blini (pancakes) with black caviar are absolute musts. With its old Russia sensibilities, this is where the new Russians like to come and flex the power of their wallet. The ground floor is decorated in the style of an old pharmacy complete with apothecary's bottles and scales. The second floor is the more exclusive library with a telescope, globe with a great view of Tverskyaya bulvar and there is also a summer terrace on the roof.

Tverskoi bulvar 26a
Tel: (495) 229 5590.
Price: $$$
Kavkazskaya Plennitsa
Georgian restaurants have a long history of serving good wholesome food in Moscow and there is a wealth of them to choose from. One of the best of them is Kavkazskaya Plennitsa, which was named after the classic 1970s film Caucasian Prisoner. One half of the restaurant is slightly kitsch, with its mock caves and rough wooden furniture and terrace. The other half, with its modern multicoloured furniture, is an attempt to update the rather old-fashioned style of most Georgian restaurants. However, the menu is very traditional: the kharcho (stewed beef in a walnut sauce), chikmirta (citrus chicken and coriander soup) and khinkali (spiced dumplings) are all Georgian classics to be savoured. As with most Georgian restaurants, expect some live and often loud folk music as the evening's entertainment and maybe even some dancing.

Prospekt Mira 36
Tel: (495) 680 5111.
Website: www.rectoran.ru
Price: $$$
Noev Kovcheg
Diners could quite easily eat their way around the former Soviet Union and there is no better place to start than at Noev Kovcheg (Noah's ark), an authentic Armenian restaurant with a rustic interior and plush red divans. Try the basturma, a spiced smoke beef dish or the bean stew in a casserole dish made from black bread. It is also one of the few places in the city that has caught on to home deliveries, which can be ordered online. Make sure you try some Armenian brandy, said to be of a superior quality to Georgian.

Maly Ivanovsky pereulok 9
Tel: (495) 917 0717.
Website: www.noevkovcheg.ru
Price: $$$
Yapona Mama
Although Moscow is several hundred miles away from the nearest open ocean, its inhabitants have taken to Japanese food with great enthusiasm. There are several sushi places on almost every street now, and even most restaurants, cafés and bars will have a sushi section. But standards vary hugely, so if you want to be sure that what you're about to eat is fresh and of the best quality head for Yapona Mama. The sleek contemporary interior is lit by natural light from the floor to ceiling glass section that leads to the summer terrace. Its white walls are hung with Japanese prints, while wooden furniture and grey divans soften the atmosphere a little. The menu offers a range of classic sashimi, sushi and excellent noodles. The atmosphere is lively; expect to have to book a table at weekends when a DJ plays dance tracks to aid digestion.

Smolenskiy bulvar 4
Tel: (495) 246 9967.
Price: $$$

Business

Akademia
Excellent quality fillet steaks, pastas, risottos, pizzas and sushi can all be found here accompanied by a wide-ranging wine list. Akademia, with its dark wood furniture and glass-backed bar, is ideal for a business lunch or breakfast. It is located next to the statue of Chekhov and opposite the MKAT theatre. It creates a popular combination of Italian and Japanese cooking such as mozarella Caprese, parma ham, salmon carpaccio and grilled fish.

Kamergerski pereulok 2
Tel: (495) 692 9649.
Website: www.academiya.ru
Price: $$$
Biscuit
There are plenty of restaurants to impress clients but Biscuit will not fail. It was established in 2001 by Arkady Novikov, Russia's most successful restaurateur, and was named after the style of unglazed porcelain popular in the 19th century rather than the type of biscuit you take with tea. Biscuit succeeds in combining the best of French haute cuisine with a clubby atmosphere. Chandeliers, plush armchairs, large gilded mirrors and luxurious drapes add to its atmosphere of a modernised 19th-century high society salon. On its menu, expect to find a similar blend of traditional dishes and modern classics such as Nobu-style black cod, buckwheat porridge with porcini and foie gras, tiger shrimps grilled with orange sauce and okroshka (a cold soup made with cucumbers, spring onion, radish, potatoes, eggs and ham with kvass).

Kuznetzsky most 19-1
Tel: (495) 925 1729.
Price: $$$$
Café April
Café April's minimalist design transposes ash wood benches and tables and plain white walls on images of Russian silver birch woodland. This mixing of the classic and contemporary is reflected in a menu that offers delicious interpretations of traditional Russian dishes. Russian and Caesar salads, fried sprat roulade with spicy sauce, Siberian dumplings and Georgian style lamb with bean stew are all excellent.

Bolshaya Spaskaya 29
Tel: (495) 680 0038/0047.
Website: www.april-cafe.ru
Price: $$$
Goodman
A visit to any of the restaurants in this small chain of steakhouses will not disappoint. Choose from a fantastic range of steak at this meat eaters' paradise: the rib-eye steak is from Australia, the New York steak is from grass or corn-fed cattle in Australia and Argentina. Specials include the Moscowboy rib-eye steak, and the Chateaubriand is particularly tasty. There is also a good stock of beefy Italian red wines to wash down all that meat. The cosy and informal atmosphere makes Goodman a great place for large groups.

Novinsky Passage 31 
Tel: (495) 775 9888.
Website: www.goodman.ru
Price: $$$
Tsarskaya Okhota
Reputed to be Boris Yeltsin's favourite restaurant, Tsarskaya Okhota (The Royal Hunt) is one of the most expensive places to eat in Moscow. However, for those with an elastic expense account or wanting to impress a client, there is no better place to go. Diners can start with traditional Russian salad (beetroot, potato salad in a mayonnaise and dill dressing) from the telega (traditional peasant cart) and then launch into something heavier, such as rasstegais (open-top pies), thick soups, shashlik and great pelmeni. Tsarskaya Okhota nestles in woodland to the northeast of the city, although it is still serviced by the metro (Molodyozhnaya). Themed as a hunting lodge, it has a roaring open fireplace and its walls are bedecked with antlers of conquests past.

Rublyovo-Uspenskoye shosse 186a, Zhukovka Village
Tel: (495) 418 7981/2.
Website: www.tsarshunt.com.ru
Price: $$$$

Trendy

Bosco
Bosco has fast become as much of a fixture on a tourist itinerary as GUM itself, or Red Square, which it overlooks. Some views are worth paying the price for and this is one of them. The restaurant's futuristic Barbarella-style (think plastic orange chairs around a space-age bar) is a great contrast to the ancient sights outside and especially welcome on particularly cold days. Just stop for a coffee and a delicious cake or work your way through the very long menu of excellent mushroom risottos, spaghetti cabonara, sushi and salads.

3 Red Square
Tel: (495) 929 3182.
Website: www.bosco.ru
Price: $$$
Galareya
Presentation is everything at Galareya: from the eclectic menu with Japanese, European, Asian, Italian, French and Russian influences, to the ‘elitny' people who dine there. The restaurant has a 100-seat terrace with wicker chairs open in summer for more relaxed dining. It describes itself as an 'art café' and indeed there are always prints, photographs or paintings for sale on the walls. Its stylish dark polished wood and low lighting give Galareya an intimate feel that attracts the glamorous ‘modniki' set to fashion parties and launch events. The chef's own cheese, the Lambertino, named after William Lamberty is worth a try, as are the house specials: Galareya salad with quail and prunes, foie gras with raspberry sauce, fried Kamchatka crab with miso aubergines and tomatoes and teriyaki salmon with mushrooms.

Petrovka ulitsa 27
Tel: (495) 790 1596.
Price: $$$
Settebello
The first and last word in genteel Italian dining in Moscow, Settebello is a popular restaurant not just for its impeccable food but its fashion industry gatherings and product launches. White starched tablecloths and gilded armchairs with pink upholstery signal a more formal approach to dining but with friendly service. The terrace overlooks the fountains nearby in the summer, and the main restaurant has a rococo conservatory feel to it year round. The menu is packed with Italian classics (albeit from the haute cuisine end) such as scampi ravioli with foie gras salsa, calamari and prawns in vinegar and oil and tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms.

Sadovaya-Samotechnaya ulitsa 3
Tel: (495) 699 3039.
Website: www.z-lounge.ru/2005
Price: $$$
Syr
After being deprived of good quality cheese in Soviet Russia, Syr (cheese) was an instant hit in 1990s Moscow. Despite stiff competition on Moscow's restaurant scene in the 1990s, Syr has managed to maintain its status as one of the coolest restaurants in the city. Its rotunda staircase and main dining area (as if carved out of cheese) could have been dreamt up by Salvador Dali himself. On the second floor, the cheese theme turns to chic with golden columns and plush red velvet drapes and there is also a street terrace for year-round dining. But both floors serve truly fantastic Italian food and although the three-course price is rather steep, pizzas are much more affordable. A huge range of Italian cheeses is, unsurprisingly, a speciality.

Sadovaya-Samotechnaya ulitsa 16
Tel: (495) 209 7770.
Website: www.cheese-restaurant.ru
Price: $$$
Vogue Café
Vogue Café really is the place to be seen and operates quite a tough 'face control' but once inside, away from the chaos of the chauffeur-driven 4-wheel drive vehicles piled up on the pavement, breakfasts, lunches and dinners are real pleasures. In keeping with Muscovites' obsession with haute couture, fashion photography adorns the walls from the archives of British and Russian Vogues. The menu mixes classics and contemporary dishes including schi (traditional cabbage soup), panfried cepes mushrooms, beef carpaccio with black truffle oil and parmesan cheese, roast duck with buckwheat and mushrooms. And of course, no self-respecting menu in a Moscow restaurant would be complete without a full range of sushi and sashimi. It is advisable to book in advance.

Kuzneckiy most 7/9
Tel: (495) 923 1701.
Price: $$$

Budget

Krushka
This is a beer-cellar type of bar that serves cheap Russian food in a lively atmosphere. Krushka (which means mug) is also a chain, so look out for its distinctive foaming beer mug set between a knife and fork logo. The simple but tasty food on offer ranges from soups to roast trout and from Caesar salad to chicken wings in honey sauce, all washed down with good quality (and cheap) beers.

Nikolskaya ulitsa 15
Tel: (495) 710 7199.
Website: www.kruzhka.ru
Price: $
Maki Café
Maki is a breath of fresh air in Moscow - good food, informal service and atmosphere and very reasonable prices. Beef stroganoff, risottos and duck in plum sauce are all fantastic - and there is even a good selection for vegetarians. Maki bucks the current trend of ultra-stylishness by exposing its brick walls and concrete with subtle details to create a warehouse ‘remont-chic' style of decor that gives a playful twist on the common occurence in Russia of everything being ‘in remont', meaning under refurbishment.

Glinishchevsky pereulok 3
Tel: (495) 292 9731.
Price: $$
Matrioshka
If you want to sample hearty and good quality Russian but don't want to pay Café Pushkin prices, head to folk-themed Matrioshka. The borscht comes in rustic cookware sealed with a crust of freshly baked bread. Blinis with mincemeat and sour cream are wonderful and the ‘bisness lanch' represents excellent value for money. The buffet of fresh salads and stews laid out on a round table in an enormous matrioshka doll in the centre of the restaurant may appear like a tourist novelty too far, but Matrioshka caters mostly to an older Russian crowd who want good value for good quality traditional food. Menus are also in English.

Triumfalnaya Ploshad 1
Tel: (495) 727 9651.
Price: $$
Moo Moo
Look out for the life-sized model of a Friesian cow on the ‘old' Arbat street. Here you can expect the Russian classics of borscht and dumplings, chicken fillets, lamb stews and lighter salads. But the beauty of the Moo Moo chain of restaurants is that they are all cafeteria-style so you can point to the dishes that appeal to you.

Ulitsa Arbat 45/23
Tel: (495) 241 1364.
Price: $
Yolki Palki
The telega (peasant cart) salad bar at Yolki Palki serves Russian salads galore (vegetable salad, marinated mushrooms etc). However, main courses, such as the Mongolian temircan plate, where diners choose meats and the spices to go with them and they are cooked to order, cannot be missed. The ukha (fish soup) can be good too, if rather pungent. With rustic, wooden furnishings and waitresses in traditional sarafan, there is a definite folk theme running through all these restaurants in the chain.

Klimentovsky pereulok 14/1
Tel: (495) 953 9130.
Price: $

Personal Recommendations

Aist
Aist, named after the stork statue on the corner of a street in Moscow's most fashionable district, is an ‘elitny' restaurant with a lounge featuring divans and low tables for more intimate dining. More formal dining can be enjoyed in the club atmosphere of the first floor with oak tables, plush red velvet armchairs and a good view of a reassuringly clean and calm open kitchen. It is difficult to make a wrong turn as you navigate the long menu from sushi to turbot mozzarella or rabbit with polenta and berry sauce to beef carpaccio with black truffles and asparagus. There is face control operating here and booking is advisable if you want to dine among the minigarch-and-model set.

Malaya Bronnaya ulitsa 8/1
Tel: (495) 736 9131/2.
Price: $$$$
City Grill
With its industrial decor of burnished metal and glass, City Grill gives pretty good value for money. Fresh duck or chicken stir fries come with a variety of rice or noodles, full-bodied salads and great soups. Service is friendly and fits into that refreshing category of ‘democratichny' where face control is not in operation. Business lunch is particularly good value. You can even watch your dish being prepared in the open kitchen, but without the sound or smells, thanks to the huge reinforced glass window.

Sadovaya-Triumphalnaya 2/30
Tel: (495) 299 4189.
Price: $$
Coffee Mania
Coffee Mania is a small chain of coffee shops that must not be missed on a trip to Moscow. A fantastic range of teas, coffees and juices is on offer but there are also salads, soups, risottos, pastas and meat main courses to fill up on. The delicious cake selection is also varied. Although Mania is not one of the cheapest 'cafés' in town, at least the quality is reliable. Although it is a small chain, the decor is different in each as befits its location: the outlet next to the conservatory is classic with huge windows and simple but stylish wooden furniture, while the one near the Detskiy Mir children's department store has pop-art comic strips of Hollywood stars. Another good thing about Coffee Mania is the lack of music, or TV screens showing the ridiculous fashion channel which blights even some of the most chic restaurants and bars in the city. Coffee Mania is also one of the few places to have cottoned on to the idea that most non-smoking foreigners do not like to sit in a cloud of secondary cigarette smoke. Refreshing indeed!

Rozhdestvenka ulitsa 6/9/20 (corner of Rozhdestvenka and Pushechnaya)
Tel: (495) 924 0075.
Website: www.coffeemania.ru/eng
Price: $$
Griboedov
Opened in October 2006, Griboedov, with its stained glass windows, art deco style chairs, oak panelling, low lighting and cut crystal, evokes a wonderful atmosphere of the club world of 19th-century gentlemen. A restaurant called Griboedov featured in the surreal novel The Master and Margarita. But do not expect culinary bizarreness: the food is excellent.

Sadovaya Triumfalnaya ulitsa 10/13
Tel: (495) 694 2971.
Price: $$$

© 2006 Columbus Travel Publishing Ltd. Disclaimer

Language:
Currency: