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Birch
Considered the toughest reservation to secure in St. Petersburg these days, Birch is a small restaurant about a 15-minute cab ride from the Astoria or Four Seasons. It has one main dining room with fewer than a dozen tables, including...
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Blok
Everything about Blok is a little dramatic, including the location atop the Leningrad Centre, a multi-use art house complex. This is the place to come for meat in all its incarnations (disconcertingly, one of the slick decor’s showpieces is a...
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Buddha Bar
The sole Russian outpost of this international lounge chain, Buddha Bar is the favored late night venue for well-heeled St. Petersburg residents and visitors.
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Caviar Bar & Restaurant
One of five restaurants in the Grand Hotel Europe, the Caviar Bar & Restaurant is an indulgent destination that would be a great setting or backdrop in a James Bond film. Exquisitely dressed diners are at ease among the marble, velvet...
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Clean Plates Society
This is one of those St. Petersburg restaurants that has everything from borscht to burgers on its menu, but it’s well-executed and the atmosphere is trendy and congenial. Clean Plates is located in walking distance to the Four Seasons and...
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Cococo
This glamorous restaurant in the Sofitel, just a short walk from the Four Seasons and Astoria hotels, is the brainchild of a Russian celebrity entrepreneur and wildly inventive chef Matilda Shnurova. Cococo also sits on the extended World’s 50 Best List.
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Dom
In St. Petersburg wave of fusion restaurants, where menus include everything from blini to sushi, it can be trying to find a good spot focused on Russian food. Dom is the winner. It occupies a historic building, and the series...
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EM Restaurant
In a building facing the Moika river, EM takes the concept of a chef’s table one step further, as Chef Olesia Drubot cooks entirely in an open kitchen facing diners' tables. She prepares everything from the bread to the beef...
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Gogol
Set in a series of drawing rooms outfit as though you were stepping back in time, the adorable Gogol (named after the famous writer who lived in this neighborhood for a while) is a good spot for trying Russian classics....
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Hochu Harcho
Georgian food is one of St. Petersburg locals’ favorite cuisines, and this cozy eatery is guaranteed to deliver delicious and home-style fare. Set in the south of the city, Hochu Harcho is a good option for those wandering around the...
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Koryushka
An excellent choice for lunch before or after visiting the Peter and Paul Fortress, this stylish restaurant from Ginza Project is located on a spit of the Peter and Paul Fortress island and boasts dramatic views of St. Petersburg's vista....
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Kuznya House
Set on New Holland island, which was once a lumberyard and is being transformed into an arts center, Kuznya House is a charming restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating and delicious food. The menu is modern continental, with starters like...
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L’Europe
The grand-dame restaurant of the Grand Hotel Europe, L’Europe boasts a spectacular Art Nouveau setting—complete with a stage and stained glass roof—as sophisticated as the white gloved servers and elegant diners themselves. Russian classics including rare caviar and the obligatory borscht...
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Luce
Luce is a sophisticated Italian restaurant just around the corner from the Grand Hotel Europe with lovely views and excellent food, even though you have to enter through a shopping mall to reach it. Unlike many of the city’s better restaurants, the...
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Makaronniki
This restaurant on the roof of an office building boasts a knock-out terrace outfitted with hammocks, gazebos and chaise lounges. There is even a sand box where kids can play while their parents linger over a summer lunch and rosé....
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Mamaliga
A member of the successful Ginza Project family, this charming eatery specializes in Georgian cuisine. Dishes include that which the restaurant is named for, Mamaliga (a polenta-like meal made of maize), as well as cold and warm salads and goulash-style stews....
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Mansarda
Mansarda is one of St. Petersburg’s buzziest and most impressive restaurants, and one that delivers a guaranteed ‘wow’ factor. Diners enter a nondescript modern office building lobby (home to Gazprom), take an elevator up a few stories and are rewarded...
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Percorso
Refined Italian cuisine in a sexy dining room in the city’s most opulent hotel, and it is no surprise that tables here are among the toughest to book in a status-obsessed city. The dining room is broken up into a...
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Podvorye
This dining institution is certainly designed for tourists, but it is well done and perfectly located for lunch before or after visiting Catherine Palace. There is a small gift shop by the entrance that sells traditional toys and wooden crafts...
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Probka
One of St. Petersburg’s most acclaimed Italian restaurants, Probka has a large open kitchen and a menu with all the recognizable staples. It’s in walking distance to the Peter and Paul Fortress, making it a good option for lunch. A...
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Russian Vodka Room
This quirky restaurant offers tours of its in-house vodka museum (charting everything from the first vodka recipe to modern-day branding) and short vodka tastings. The dining room itself is bright with arched ceilings and draped velvet curtains and a choice...
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Severyanin
Located in the old center of St. Petersburg, Severyanin serves classic Northern Russian cuisine in an elegant, warm setting that feels like a cozy local home. The delicious signature menu highlights typical dishes like Atlantic herring, smoked trout tartar and...
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Sintoho
The pan-Asian restaurant in the Four Seasons is named for the cities of Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong. The design is chic and modern with mood lighting and Asian elements, and the menu features sushi, dim sum and wok dishes. Much...
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Stolle
This pastry shop specializes in strudel-like pies that can be bought for take out or for eating at the few tables in the quaint dining area. The staff does not speak English but there is a menu so you can...
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Stroganoff Steakhouse
Stroganoff offers a break from the gold-leaf glamour of many St. Petersburg eateries with a simple, hearty menu served in an industrial-style dining room with exposed brick, black-and-white photographs depicting pre-Revolution Russia and lots of taxidermy. The English-speaking staff is...
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Terrassa
This perennially popular spot is located on the roof of one of the city’s tallest buildings, making the 350-square-meter terrace the place to be during summer’s White Nights. The dining room’s décor feels contemporary and features an open kitchen where...
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The Idiot
This basement restaurant beside the Moika canal serves Russian and hard-to-find vegetarian cuisine and attracts a young, arty and expat crowd who read, eat, drink vodka and play chess in the five separate dining rooms.
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Tsar
A firm favorite with St. Petersburg’s society crowd, this beautiful restaurant is, indeed, fit for a king with historical details restored by designer Sergey Tretyak along with a clash of gold, deep red and cream furnishings. The menu, which is...
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Ulitsa Rubinshteyna (Rubinstein Street)
Lined with bars and restaurants, this street is the heart of St. Petersburg nightlife scene and a place where visitors can get a sense of the local scene (which is somewhat subdued at the more upscale restaurants that are unaffordable...
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Yat
The Russian-country-cottage backdrop may be a little hokey, but the traditional food served here is delicious, and the location, in walking distance to the Hermitage and Church of the Savoir on Spilled Blood, can’t be beat. There’s also a cute...
St. Petersburg

The St. Petersburg dining scene is beginning to see some excellent international restaurants opening. Spoiled oligarchs tend to dismiss their native borscht and Stroganoff, instead preferring Italian cuisine and sushi. The hot spots of London, New York and St. Tropez have inspired their décor and their menus as well as the haughty attitude of many of their wait staff.
There are a few great restaurants featuring Russian classics such as Tsar, and so-called “Soviet-chic” cafés like The Idiot, preferred by hip twenty-somethings. Haute-cuisine hotel eateries like Percorso and restaurants, like Mansarda and Terrassa, bring a chic, modern aesthetic to St. Petersburg. You will see the word ‘pectopah’, meaning restaurant, on the front of most establishments, but be aware this is a Cyrillic word (it sounds out ‘resto-ran’), and the letters are just recognizable in English.