Fancy eats in Petersburg

[emsny]

Has anyone been to Mechta Molokhovets in St. Petersburg? Fascinating menu, and one wonders whether they can deliver all they promise by way of old-fashioned elaborate Russian dishes.

Any other suggestions for the fancier kind of Russian food in St. Petersburg? We'll be there for eight days, so I think we can spare an evening or two for that sort of dinner.

Thanks.

[little ms foodie]

We are planning a trip to St Petersburg this winter so I'd love to hear of your experiences!

[emsny]

We'll be back in early August and I'll pass along anything that turns out to be interesting.

[little ms foodie]

thank you!!!

[emsny]

Just back from Russia - nine days in Petersburg. We did not eat in any fancy restaurants, but the Caviar Bar in the Grand Hotel Europe looks excellent if you want to go that route. There's a kind of oligarch/mafioso feel to the very fancy places that is not especially appealing. The best meals we had were in a Georgian restaurant on Petrograd island - Salkhino (Kronverksky Prospect 25; Tel: 232-7891) - and near the Mariinsky Theater at a bakery/cafe that sells nothing but pierogi/kulibiaki: Stolle (ulitsa Dekabristov 33 and a few other locations). The better-known Georgian restaurant Ket (off Nevsky) was nowhere nearly as good as Salkhino, where we ate twice. Salkhino has an English menu of sorts; at Stolle you can just point to what you want - and what they have varies from minute to minute as pies come out of the oven. Theoretically there are nine or ten savory and half a dozen sweet pies. On our first visit there were four and four available (when we were leaving we saw that the selection had changed). On our second visit (we went there twice too), only one of each was available; but again, others came out in the course of our half-hour stay. Sorry - I shouldn't assume that eGullet members don't speak Russian!

[Schneier]

Based on the recommendation above, I had lunch at Salkhino. It isn't easy to find, but it's worth seeking out. (With apologies to the Slavic-literate readers, the name of the restaurant looks more like "Yakanyru.")

The menu is in both Russian and English. I started with khachapuri, hot flat bread stuffed with cheese. Then I had a mutton soup with greens, rice, and tomato -- seasoned with dill, parsley, and other things -- called kharcho. And for my main course I had mutton stew with dill, tarragon, onion, bay, pomegranate seeds, and a sauce which tasted somewhat like cranberry; it's called chakapuli. Oddly, that was one of the few dishes not translated into English on the menu; that kind of thing always makes me wonder what they're hiding -- and then want to order it to find out.

Everything was tasty, and the whole meal cost 700 rubles.

I had plans to visit some other St. Petersburg restaurants, including one with bear on the menu, but they didn't come to fruition. (I didn't get to the Hermitage either.)

Bruce

Edited June 2, 2006 by Schneier (log)