The back story
Russian Cuisine
Borscht and shchi, pelmeni and pirozhki, blini with sour cream or caviar, syrniki for breakfast, olivier salad at New Year and medovik for afters: the dishes of Moscow, and where to taste them.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © HaJunkiyada · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsWhat to order in Moscow, from the grand dining rooms of Tverskoy Boulevard to the canteen in GUM: our guide to the Russian table.
The Russian table
Russian cooking was made for long winters: soups, dumplings, pancakes and pickles, with sour cream on almost everything. In Moscow you can eat it in a 19th-century-style dining room or at a canteen counter.
Borscht and shchi
Start with soup. Borscht, the beetroot soup, comes deep red with a spoon of sour cream; shchi is made with cabbage, fresh or fermented.
Pelmeni and pirozhki
Pelmeni are small meat dumplings, boiled and served with sour cream or butter; pirozhki are little baked or fried pies, filled with meat, cabbage or egg.
Blini and syrniki
Blini, thin pancakes, are eaten with sour cream, jam, or red and black caviar; syrniki, little fried curd-cheese pancakes, are the Moscow breakfast.
Soup to start, dumplings to follow and blini at any hour: the warming table of Moscow.
The festive table
At New Year the table fills with olivier salad and herring under a fur coat, and the meal ends with medovik, the layered honey cake.
Where to taste them
Café Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard for the classics around the clock; the Grand Café Dr. Zhivago in the Hotel National for syrniki at breakfast; and the canteen in GUM for a quick bowl of soup on Red Square.
Our advice: order a bowl of borscht and a plate of pelmeni at least once, and leave room for medovik.
Why it's on our list
- Borscht
- Shchi
- Pelmeni
- Blini
- Syrniki
- Olivier salad
- Medovik
Location
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More in depth
The back storyThe grand hotels of MoscowThe Metropol and the National face the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, The Carlton looks down Tverskaya, the Savoy hides on Rozhdestvenka and the Hotel Ukraina rises over the river. Here is where to stay, district by district.
The back storyRed Square and the KremlinThe Kremlin’s cathedrals and the Armoury, St Basil’s and Red Square, GUM and the State Historical Museum: the heart of Moscow, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.