Beyond the Abandoned Tea Plantations

The city can offer a selection of diners for any taste and wallet. Chefs are more of a problem. Close ties with Moscow and St. Petersburg mean that any chef to make a name for himself or herself in this resort town heads for any of these Russian capitals.

Original takes with local ingredients continue regardless and can be savoured in Sochi’s Baran Rapan or Red Fox, the latter owned by Moscow-based White Rabbit Family and boasting Yuri Kostyryov, the region’s best chef according to the WheretToEat/South 2020 ranking.

Adygea cuisine is excellent at Ader’s Vysota 5642, a branch of the eponymous Moscow diner operated by Novikov Group of Russia’s foremost restaurateur Arkady Novikov. The things making Krasnaya Polyana a good traveling destination are a Samovar tea party, sorrel cakes, cornel jam and slow cooked duck at the "Yabloki Pechem" (We Cook Apples) farm restaurant.

Most Moscow critics concur that this is the best dining place in both Rostov-on-Don and the entire south. Leo is more of a wine bar than a restaurant. Still, its wine list and original cuisine puts it on par with Europe’s best bistronomies. 

Unlike Europe, Russia lacks a process whereby a product may be designated a locality brand if certain location and production criteria are met. Still there are foods in Russia that use them. One of them is Adygea cheese. To be called that, it should be manufactured by a Republic of Adygea producer with local cow milk and in strict accordance with a certain recipe.

Since the 1980s, this type of cheese has been produced in Belarus and Ukraine that fall outside of Russian laws. Still, Adygea’s capital of Maikop holds annual cheese festivals with a fair, competitions, workshops and production (and consumption) displays for the region’s most famous food.