In the Best Traditions of Russian Gentry Cuisine

There are many origin myths around this dish...

At lunch, the emperor ordered a veal cutlet that was on the menu, but the owner had run out of veal. His daughter, Darya Pozharskaya, who we know for a fact to have existed, took minced chicken and fashioned it into some sort of a fake veal cutlet that she even set on a bone as per French custom.

A scandal broke out, and the inn keeper had to confess to the fraud. But the emperor liked the dish and even ordered that it be included on the Tsar's kitchen menu.

It took us a lot of time to come up with the right recipe for the Pozharsky cutlet, but the result proved Cafe Pushkin's signature dish thanks to the high quality of ingredients and their seamless combination. 

To date, more than half a million of these have been sold, with many clients coming to our cafe specifically to try the cutlet.  

Turandot is a pan-Asian restaurant. So how did Borscht find its way here? Not to mention, that it's a rare cherry variety of this soup that even Russians themselves would find unusual.

Like many Asian dishes, borscht with cherries succeeds in balancing out the distinct tastes of sweet and salty.

Matryoshka's chef travelled all over the country in search for recipes and products before stumbling upon a rare and original recipe from 1894 that features hazel grouse, crayfish tails and a sterlet-meet-sturgeon caviar mix. The hazels, which are not easily found in Russia, would have to be swapped for quails.

This was a huge risk for the chef, who was presenting an original take on a salad that everyone in Russia, including restaurant critics, have known since childhood. Besides, there are many places that make excellent Olivier, which has remained exceptionally popular at our Cafe Pushkin for 20 years. But the gamble paid off with the new salad impressing diners and critics alike.  

Medovik is apparently a simple honey cake, but there is one trick to it that eludes so many. Even with so many layers, it has to feel like a whole and melt in your mouth.

According to legend, the dish is named after Count Stroganov, and at first glance, seems extremely simple. Unless you are an experienced chef, however, it is rather difficult to turn it into a real treat. It is easy to make it bland. As a rule, only people with cooking flair will get far with this kind of dish. This is the first hiccup, while the second concerns the ingredients.  

World cuisines are routinely divided into those prioritising the ingredients and those focusing the recipe on the cooking procedure. These two concepts are equally important when it comes to Beef Stroganov. If the products are subpar, the whole affair will flounder, just as it will with the very best of those if your intuition fails you.