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$$ | Kitai Gorod |
Students and a sizeable portion of the local office-worker population flock here for the three-course lunch special, and in the evening, the low lighting and soft wood tones provide a warm and intimate setting. The eclectic menu veers from the Alps to the Andes, and the salade niçoise and the steak with peppercorn sauce are standouts.
3 per. Krivokolenny, Moscow, Moscow, 101000, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No credit cards
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$$ | Ulitsa Tverskaya |
The minimalist interior isn't necessarily welcoming, but this a great place for a quick, healthy lunch near the city sights. There are lots of fresh salads with some ingredients that are quite rare in Russia, like quinoa and soy sprouts, and the sweet potato fries are a great indulgence. While here, try one of the many vitamin-packed mixed vegetable juices.
11 ul. Bolshaya Dmitrovka, Moscow, Moscow, 125009, Russia
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$$$ | Kropotkinskaya |
After entering through a tunnel of vine leaves, you're seated at oak tables in a somewhat Disneyfied version of an old country house in Georgia (the country). The food—rich stews, aromnatic rice dishes, grilled meats and kebabs—is genuine, however, and in the evenings you can enjoy an authentic Georgian choir and traditional dancing.
14/2 ul. Ostozhenka, Moscow, Moscow, 119034, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$ | Kropotkinskaya |
Sink into folds of burgundy velour with a plate of chocolates and a cappuccino at this indulgent dessert spot off the Boulevard Ring. Unapologetically frilly and romantic, the two rooms are adorned with pink ribbons on gauzy white curtains and floral-patterned cushions atop wrought-iron chairs; gold-framed still lifes line the walls. The menu is about two-thirds sweets—truffles, praline, mille-feuille, cookies, cakes, pies—but it also includes a weekday lunch selection of soups, pastas, and pancakes, and a handful of dinner items. Service is genial and almost courtly.
6 per. Gagarinsky, Moscow, Moscow, 119002, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$$$ | Arbat |
This cheap and cheerful replica of a classic Parisian bistro, open 24 hours a day, is almost always busy, and little wonder: the selection of wines by the glass is the best in Moscow; the daily lunch special, with a choice of soup, salad, and main, is a great value; and water is free, an unusual treat in Moscow. Some of the mains are hit or miss, but the steak is reliably good.
12 bulvar Nikitsky, Moscow, Moscow, 119034, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$ | Kitai Gorod |
For a fun, retro-Soviet experience, step into this new hot spot owned by one of Moscow's best known restauranteurs for a cold beer and a caviar sandwich. The menu and price list are reminiscent of a typical Soviet beer bar with a modern touch of today's Moscow scene.
7 ul. Kuznetsky Most, Moscow, Moscow, 107031, Russia
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$$$ | Ulitsa Bolshaya Nikitskaya |
Bookshelves line the walls of this two-floor café, popular with students and intellectuals who enjoy good food at budget prices—salads, braised and grilled meat and fish, vegetable dishes, and seasonal selections, such as roasted pumpkin in fall and gazpacho come June. It can get smoky, but there's a small nonsmoking area.
22/2 ul. Bolshaya Nikitskaya, Moscow, Moscow, 121099, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$$$$ | Northern Outskirts |
This is one of the few truly excellent Italian restaurants in a city full of pretenders. Brand chef Nicola Canuti is a pupil of French great Alain Ducasse, and his creative Mediterranean cuisine has an artistic flair. The menu is large, with standouts that include foie gras with a sangria sauce and a signature 36-hour braised lamb. Potted plants dot the sumptuous glassed-in dining room, making it feel like a modern noble's playhouse/greenhouse.
7 ul. Delegatskaya, Moscow, Moscow, 127473, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$ | Kitai Gorod |
Some of the new Russian elite undoubtedly have closets bigger than this hole-in-the-wall student hangout. But what this jammed little place lacks in size it makes up in hipster-bohemian charm. The menu offers many options ideal for a late-night snack or a late-morning pick-me-up—along the lines of salmon-and-spinach pie, Russian-style sweet-cheese pancakes, and fruit smoothies. Service can be inconsistent and hectic, but a "no smoking" policy might make a wait more tolerable.
1/4 Solyanskiy Tupik, Moscow, Moscow, 109240, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No credit cards
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$$$ | Kitai Gorod |
Gilded ceilings and low lighting provide a dark and romantic setting in which to enjoy fresh Pan-Asian cuisine that appears to be irresistible to a smart crowd. A long list of cocktails prepared by expert bartenders keeps the place hopping late into the night.
2 per. Malyy Cherkasskiy, Moscow, Moscow, 109012, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Reservations essential
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$$$ | Ulitsa Tverskaya |
Find the unmarked entrance, ring the right doorbell, and you will be taken back half a century to an idealized Soviet home. It could be Red Army Day, the way the tables are garnished with white cloth and water goblets—and the flour-and-water baranki crackers on the table evoke bygone scarcity. Stolid, apron-clad waitresses glide from table to table delivering beet salads, mushroom soup, and other nostalgic fare. Wooden shelves and the bric-a-brac on them—glass cookie jars, an old radio, a deer figurine—make this place feel truly homey. The experience isn't entirely homespun, though—Mari Vanna has branches as far afield as New York and Los Angeles.
10a per. Spiridonevsk, Moscow, Moscow, 123104, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$$$$ | Kremlin/Red Square |
Recalling the splendor of prerevolutionary Russia, the opulent interiors of the Metropol hotel's grand dining hall are a stunning memorial to Russian art nouveau. The nearly three-story-high dining room is replete with stained-glass windows, marble pillars, and a leaded-glass roof. Among the famous guests to have dined here are George Bernard Shaw, Vladimir Lenin, and Michael Jackson. The menu is laden with French and Russian delicacies, such as the popular fried duck with wild-cherry sauce and a baked apple. Cap your meal off with wine from the extensive list and cheese. There is also live music at breakfast and in the evenings.
2 pr. Teatralny, Moscow, Moscow, 109012, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted, Reservations essential, Jacket and tie
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$ | Kitai Gorod |
Join the masses for pancakes and kebabs at this popular cafeteria-style chain. This location is just a block away from the Lubyanka, once the home of the KGB, and still the main building of that notorious agency's successor. Compared to the offerings at similar Russian fast food joints, the food here is of a higher quality. Even so, unless you love mayonaisse, skip the mystery salads for simpler meats and sides that include stuffed and fried cutlets and dumplings, grilled meat and fish, and classic Russian soups, including borsch and shi, made from cabbage. The staff doesn't speak much English, but you can generally get by with gestures.
14/2 ul. Myasnitskaya, Moscow, Moscow, 101000, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No credit cards
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$ | Ulitsa Tverskaya |
This British pizza chain has slowly cornered the market for inexpensive Italian fare in Moscow with several branches. The Tverskaya location is the largest, serving decent pizzas and pasta dishes to local business people, students, and foreigners who pack into the two floor of dining rooms. Reasonably priced wines are available by the glass.
17 ul. Tverskaya, Moscow, Moscow, 125009, Russia
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$ | Kremlin/Red Square |
This citywide chain is one of the few trustworthy spots to get fresh, tasty food on the fly. With many shelves of low-cost wraps, salads, soups, and even sushi, there's a lot to choose from. There's also a pastry case with surprisingly good fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, and even a worthy chocolate mousse. When it's warm, sit under a patio umbrella here, on a pedestrian street near Red Square, and watch every class of Muscovite go by.
Nikolskaya St., Moscow, Moscow, 125009, Russia
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$$ | Kitai Gorod |
This may be one of Moscow's most popular clubs, but before the dance floor opens up, it lays out the tables for its own hearty, delicious food, for some of the most reasonable prices in the city center. The cuisine ranges over all the continents, from Indian to Thai to Russian, but the dishes are kept simple, and service is quick. The filling sandwiches and pastas, with such accompaniments as curried chicken and porcini mushrooms, are particularly good values. Warning: the place gets smokey at night.
7 per. Bolshoi Zlatoustinsky, Moscow, Moscow, 101000, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No credit cards
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$$$ | Ulitsa Tverskaya |
One of the most serene dining rooms in the city, with comfortable wooden chairs and upholstered benches, also has a nice terrace and beer garden for summer dining. The Swedish chef mixes modern European and Scandinavian choices. If you're out for purely Scandinavian fare, try the herring with boiled potatoes, which comes with a shot of aquavit; for casual dining, the burgers are considered to be the best in Moscow.
7 per. Maly Palashevsky, Moscow, Moscow, 123104, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$$$ | Ulitsa Tverskaya |
This chain scattered throughout Moscow serves sandwiches and burgers in brightly lit 1950s settings and is popular with late-night workers, early-morning partygoers, and American travelers and expats looking for a taste of home. This location is especially busy because of the city-center location and secluded summertime patio. Waiters are young and friendly, speak English, and serve fast.
16 ul. Bolshaya Sadovaya, Moscow, Moscow, 125047, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$$ | Kropotkinskaya |
A row of windows and the blond-wood patio provide you with a panorama of the Moskva River, the Kremlin, and the white marble monolith of Christ the Savior cathedral. Though the location alone warrants a visit, a reliable menu offers an interesting mix of salads, pastas, and grilled meats, and service is solicitous. The place buzzes with hipster youth and a velvet rope appears on Friday and Saturday nights, but, as at many Moscow clubs, foreigners don't usually have a problem getting in.
5 nab. Bersenevskaya, Moscow, Moscow, 119072, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
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$$$$ | Ulitsa Tverskaya |
Ornate decor and elaborate, modern interpretations of Russian, Continental, and Asian Fusion fare make quite an impression—which is the point, and why this over-the-top rendition of a baroque palace is one of the preferred eateries of the city's power elite. Beneath elaborate frescoes, domes, and columns, a waitstaff in brocaded waistcoats serves everything from dim sum to smoked venison; there's something for just about everyone willing to pay the bank-breaking prices. Weekend brunches are an expensive indulgence, while the pre-theater set menus are quite a bargain.
26/3 bul. Tverskoi, Moscow, Moscow, 125009, Russia
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Reservations essential