THE THEATRICAL TABLE

Ruski

On the 85th floor of OKO Tower stands a Russian wood-fired oven. Eight meters of whitewashed clay — inside a skyscraper, above the city. The panoramic restaurant Ruski — Europe’s highest restaurant — builds its menu around it: venison dumplings, Volga fish pies, slow-cooked cabbage soup. The entire floor is floor-to-ceiling glass — the city below, the sky alongside. Next door: Ice Bar at −15°C, real fur coats, beluga caviar, a bar counter carved from ice blocks — the world’s highest ice bar. The cold is real. So is the caviar.

Manul

Manul is built around the cuisines of Siberian peoples, with a menu developed from recipes gathered on expeditions to Khakassia, Tuva, Altai, and the Yenisei region. Dishes include stroganina (thin-sliced frozen raw fish), muksun and chir, taiga venison, Khakass lamb, and khuzhuur pies, prepared in an open kitchen with a wood-fired oven. It sits in the Seasons gallery on Okhotny Ryad, a short walk from Red Square.

Café Pushkin

Café Pushkin appeared in Moscow thanks to the song «Nathalie»: Gilbert Bécaud imagined a fictional café in the heart of Moscow where the protagonist drinks hot chocolate and watches the snow.

In 1999, restaurateur Andrei Dellos decided to bring it to life; the restaurant opened on Tverskoy Boulevard, and chef Andrei Makhov created a menu based on traditional recipes.

DR. Zhivago

Dr. Zhivago is a grand café on the ground floor of the historic Hotel National, with views toward the Kremlin and Manege Square, and a recommendation from the Michelin Guide. The main hall displays reproductions of major Soviet-era paintings — Malevich, Petrov-Vodkin, Deineka, Samokhvalov — while an inner room takes its black-lacquer, gold-ceilinged look from Palekh lacquer boxes. The menu reworks Russian classics such as pozharsky cutlets, sturgeon aspic, and caviar service, backed by a vodka bar of polugar, samogon, and infused spirits.

Turandot Restaurant

opera and a palace

Turandot Restaurant is a palace in the Baroque chinoiserie style, where dinner is served to opera and theatrical performances. The building on Tverskoy Boulevard was rebuilt in the early 2000s: the interior took six years to assemble, the tapestries reproduce engravings by François Boucher, and the halls are decorated with genuine 18th-century antiques. The programme runs by calendar: opera dinners, theatrical evenings such as The Phantom of the Opera, when actors from Moscow theatres turn the central hall into an opera stage, and lectures on the history of luxury paired with a set menu from the chef. Seats for performances sell out in advance; always check the current schedule.

Krasota Gastrotheatre

an immersive dinner performance

Krasota is Russia’s first gastrotheatre: dinner here unfolds as a stage show, with each course synchronised to projections on the walls, the table and the plates — not simply served to music. The format makes the evening clear without knowing the language: the story reads through light, sound and the way each dish arrives. The theatre stands five minutes from the Kremlin and belongs to White Rabbit Family, a restaurant group well known in Russia. The pink hall with a bar serves as the aperitif lounge, while the performance itself takes place in a separate theatre hall at a single table for 20 guests, who are invited in after the third bell — the traditional Russian theatre signal. The repertoire holds three shows: Imaginary Russia 2.0 travels through the country’s eras from paganism to the internet age, Imaginary Art steps into the worlds of eight Russian painters, and Imaginary Future unfolds seven scenarios for humanity’s tomorrow with a seven-course set; in winter, a seasonal Nutcracker joins the bill. Performances run by calendar; tickets are released on the official website on the 1st of every month.

Odeon Theatre

a musical with dinner

Odeon Theatre is a gastronomic theatre in Moscow where dinner and the performance run at the same time. Guests sit at tables inside the action — actors appear right beside them, sets change before their eyes, and a four-course dinner by Pinskiy&Co, a well-known restaurant group, is built into the plot: a welcome drink before the show, a starter before the first act, the main course in the first intermission, dessert in the second. There is a choice of meat, fish or vegetarian set, plus a children’s menu; the age limit is 12+. The story rests on visual mechanics — mystery, dance duets, sets transforming in real time, familiar hits of the 90s and 2000s in new arrangements — so the evening reads without knowing Russian.

CHEF’S TABLE

dinner at the chef's counter

Chef’s Table by WRF is an intimate space for 20 guests set around an open kitchen, where a themed tasting menu is presented each evening by one of the chefs from the White Rabbit Family restaurant alliance. Dishes are prepared and served right at the table, in full view of the guests. Vladimir Mukhin, brand chef of the alliance, has headed the kitchen of its flagship restaurant, White Rabbit — awarded a star by the MICHELIN red guide and ranked as high as 13th on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list — for 13 years, and oversees around 40 restaurants of the alliance across Russia, Turkey, and Dubai, three of which also hold a MICHELIN star.

RODINA

Rodina Moskva is a multi-format club set inside a historic mansion in central Moscow, combining a main club room, a karaoke hall, a bar, and a private VIP space, with room for up to 300 guests when the spaces are opened together. Light installations and 3D-mapped projections run through the main hall, and the lounge bar’s ceiling is painted in a style referencing Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The menu pairs Russian dishes — pelmeni with nelma and red caviar, Rostov-style fish soup, olivier with braised beef — with Japanese sushi and a whisky-led bar list.

SIMACH

Simach v Nedalnem is a two-level venue on Tverskoy Boulevard that revives the cult Moscow nightlife brand Simachev, now combined with the pan-Asian restaurant Nedalny Vostok from the Novikov Group. The ground floor holds an open-kitchen restaurant and a sushi bar built around a large fireplace, while the second floor is a club with private booths, a dance floor, and DJ sets running Thursday through Saturday until morning. The interior carries over the brand’s signature hot-pink khokhloma pattern, a visual link to its predecessor, the original Denis Simachev Shop & Bar.

Soho rooms

Soho Rooms is a nightclub and restaurant complex on the Moskva River embankment, built inside a converted workshop of the former Moscow Silk textile factory. Open since 2007, it’s arranged across several spaces — a restaurant in classic English-style decor, a dance floor, a karaoke room, and a glass-domed rooftop terrace with a pool that operates year-round. The kitchen serves a mix of European, Japanese, and pan-Asian dishes, and entry is subject to strict face control.

Mendeleev

Mendeleev is a cocktail bar on Petrovka Street, set inside the brick-vaulted basement of a former imperial-era print house and recently relaunched with a new absinthe-forward cocktail menu built around the theme of East meeting West. A separate Dance Room behind a velvet curtain hosts DJ sets, alongside live jazz and piano evenings earlier in the week. Entry runs through the adjoining Japanese restaurant, Oshi Izakaya Emperor, continuing the venue’s history as a hidden, speakeasy-style bar.

Expeditsiya

A long-standing restaurant of Northern cuisine, located in Pevchesky Lane. The menu features dishes and ingredients from the Russian North, while the space itself is divided into several themed areas: «Bivouac,» the Fireplace Hall, a terrace, and «Wintering.» It’s an ideal spot for those who want to discover how traditional Russian cuisine transforms when it moves from expedition conditions to a metropolitan restaurant kitchen.