Moscow’s restaurant scene continued to grow at a rapid rate over the course of the year, with hundreds of new restaurants springing up around town. To help keep track of the bewildering selection of new eateries that have opened in the last 12 months, the Winter Guide has compiled a list of noteworthy additions to the capital’s culinary compendium.
The very start of the year saw the opening of Gorki on 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa. The restaurant follows the now-fading trend in retro-Soviet restaurants that offer a classical throwback menu and interior. Seafood restaurant La Maree’s appearance was also one of the last in a skein of similar seafood restaurant openings around town.
One trend that gathered steam during the year was the democratization of the restaurant market combined with the growing popularity of restaurant chains. RosBusinessConsulting places the yearly growth of the inexpensive eateries segment at 20 percent and predicts that this tempo would be sustained for at least three to five years. Meanwhile, the Finam investment company’s research showed that the upmarket segment has been oversaturated, resulting in the number of fine-dining establishments in Moscow falling by some 5 percent to approximately 160. Reflecting this trend, RP-Com restaurant-management company unveiled a strategy of repositioning its upmarket eateries toward the middle-class market. As a part of this drive, RP-Com closed its upscale restaurants Beluga and Borgo, with Borgo being reinvented as the more family-friendly Pasta della Mamma. Summing up the trend was the restaurant Snobs’ reincarnation as the eatery Casual.
Meanwhile, chains became increasingly popular with both restaurateurs and the dining public alike. The expat-pleasing Correa’s added a second, larger venue in the Zamoskvorechye area. Both the Viaggio and the Pasta Project chains appeared, offering pasta dishes at affordable prices. Da Cicco added a third venue serving its inexpensive Italian cuisine. Ukrainian restaurant Khutorok added an outlet on Leningradsky Prospekt and lovers of micro-brewed beer were rewarded with the opening of one more branch of the brewery-restaurant chain Durdin.
Besides the countless sushi bars that continued to open around town, other Asian cuisines continued to make inroads, with Chinese chain Pekinskaya Utka opening a new branch out on Rublyovskoye Shosse and upmarket Tan opening downtown at Mayakovskaya. But the Asian sensation that took the capital by storm this year would have to be Thai cuisine. It not only made appearances on the menus of numerous Chinese restaurants such as Pekinskaya Utka, Dzhun Go and Tan, but also played the starring role at a range of new Thai restaurants, including Indokitai (which later merged with the Italian restaurant Carpaccio), Taisky Slon, Om Cafe and finally the highly regarded and highly expensive Blue Elephant.
Other notable developments included the opening of two high-altitude bar/restaurants — the Sky Lounge on the 22nd floor atop the Academy of Sciences building just off Gagarin Square in the south, and City Space (pictured above), with its 360-degree panoramic views from 140 meters up on the top of Swissotel Krasnye Holmy hotel near Paveletsky Station. For those with a more terrestrial budget, the area around Ulitsa Timura Frunze has started to resemble a small slice of the East Village with the opening of Suzy Wong right next door to Keks and the even more recent opening of Vodka Bar one block back on Ulitsa Lva Tolstogo.
Blue Elephant
31 Novinsky Bulvar, (Novinsky Passazh complex) (M. Smolenskaya)
580-7756,
Carpaccio
42 Ul. Ostozhenka (M. Park Kultury)
246-0433, 11am-midnight
Casual
3 1st Obydensky Per. (M. Kropotkinskaya)
775-2310, 11am-last customer.
City Space
52 Kosmodamianskaya Nab., Building 6 (M. Paveletskaya)
787-9800, 5pm-2am
Correa’s
32 Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Ul., Building 1 (M. Barrikadnaya)
933-4684, 8am-10pm, Sat. & Sun. 9am-10pm
Correa’s
40 Ul. Bolshaya Ordynka, Building 2 (M. Polyanka / Tretyakovskaya)
725-5878, weekdays 8am-midnight, weekends 9am-midnight, kitchen open until 10:30pm
Da Cicco
13/12 Profsoyuznaya Ul. (M. Profsoyuznaya)
125-1196, noon-11pm, Sun. noon-midnight
Da Cicco
3 Banny Per. (M. Prospekt Mira)
786-8646, 11am-midnight.
Durdin
80 Leningradsky Prospekt (M. Sokol)
780-5435, noon-midnight
Durdin
56 Ul. Bolshaya Polyanka (M. Polyanka)
953-5200, noon-midnight
Durdin
4a Volgogradsky Prospekt (M. Proletarskaya)
780-0139, noon-midnight.
Dzhun Go
24/2 Tverskaya Ul. (M. Mayakovskaya)
755-8403, noon-midnight
Gorki
3 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ul., Building 1, Corpus 1 (M. Mayakovskaya)
noon-midnight
Indokitai
42 Ul. Ostozhenka (M. Park Kultury)
246-0433, 11am-midnight
Keks
11 Ul. Timura Frunze (M. Park Kultury)
246-0864, 11am-last customer
La Maree
28 Ul. Petrovka (M. Pushkinskaya)
200-0930, noon-midnight
Om Cafe
15 Ul. Novy Arbat, Building 1 (M. Arbatskaya)
202-1582, 11am-midnight
Pasta della Mamma
12/9 Spiridonyevsky Per. (M. Pushkinskaya)
730-5600, noon-midnight
Pasta Project
1 Ul. Pokrovka (M. Kitai-Gorod)
928-6767, 8:30am-11:30pm, Sat. & Sun. 10am-11:30pm
Pasta Project
22 Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Ul. (M. Taganskaya)
915-1048, 9am-11:30pm, Sat. & Sun. 11:30am-1:30am
Pekinskaya Utka
24 Tverskaya Ul. (M. Mayakovskaya)
755-8401, 11am-midnight
Sky Lounge
32a Leninsky Prospekt (M. Leninsky Prospekt)
938-5104, Fri. & Sat. 24 hours, Sun.-Thu. until last guest.
Suzy Wong
11 Ul. Timura Frunze (M. Park Kultury)
245-4849, noon-last guest.
Taisky Slon
25 Khoroshyovskoye Shosse (M. Polezhayevskaya)
974-8401, noon-last customer.
Tan
13 Oruzheiny Per., Building 1 (M. Mayakovskaya)
726-8133, 251-0877, noon-midnight.
Viaggio
9/1 Bolshoi Spasoglinishchevsky Per., Corpus 16 (M. Kitai Gorod)
923-9723, 11am-midnight.
Viaggio
26-30 Bakuninskaya Ul., Building 1 (M. Baumanskaya)
223-3075, noon-11pm.
Vodka Bar
18b Ul. Lva Tolstogo (M. Park Kultury)
246-9669, noon-last guest
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