Best bars in… Moscow

Shots and beer have been supplemented with creative infusions and barrel-aged spirits at the top spots in Russia’s capital. Erkin Tuznuhamedov reports.

Barrel-aged cocktails and unique infusions dominate the drinks lists at Moscow’s best bars

Alexander Kudryavtsev was the first official Soviet barman when he began working behind the bar of Moscow’s Intourist Hotel in 1965.

Things have moved on since, although it was only in 1992, when Yeltsin lifted the state monopoly on alcohol, that local bars started to take off. Today there are some 3,000 drinking establishments in the city, many of them in the dormitory suburbs.

Those that really excite Western drinks companies probably number around 50 and are all downtown in the so-called ‘Moscow garden ring’.

Until a few years ago there was entrenched consumer resistance to mixed drinks with Muscovites preferring shots and beer, with perhaps a whisky and cola at a stretch. What cocktails there were tended to be of the fruit salad spiked with vodka variety. In the last three years there has been a much more professional approach among Moscow’s leading bartenders who have worked hard on improving their menus and cocktail recipes, along with upgrading the design and ambience of their bars.

Almost all the latest top venues are playing around with their own ingredients plus infusions, bitters, distillates, and barrel aged spirits to create unique cocktails that are beginning to catch on. This is reflected in the success of the Moscow Bar Show, now in its second year, in which such international luminaries as Salvatore Calabrese, Anastasia Miller, Jared Brown and Peter Dorelli have attended. Many have become regular visitors, judging international competitions sponsored by the likes of Bacardi, Angostura and Diageo.

The Big Liver

There are several successful and highly rated independent bars like the Mandarin, Luch, Rolling Stone and Solyanka, but the trend is towards consolidation with star bartenders becoming co-owners of the best outlets, which has helped attract investment. The Bartender Brothers Group (www.barbros.ru), for example, is a collaboration between Dima Sokolov, Alexander Kan, Marat Saddarov and others. They act as consultants, offering brand training and staff education, and co-own or control around 20 of Moscow’s foremost drinking establishments. Seiran Gevorkian’s United Bars has a stable of eight popular establishments with names like Martinez, Cuba Libre, Rick-n-Roll and Tequila.

Meanwhile Bek Nazri, who runs The Russian Cocktail Club, oversees bar development and management for the St. Petersburg-based Ginza group. This powerful outfit currently has venues in all the major Russian cities, including 10 in Moscow, as well as interests in Europe and the US.

One Russian idea unlikely to find favour with public health professionals in the West is the Big Liver. This curious loyalty scheme was devised by Roman Toropshin, head of the country’s barmen’s association, in his home town of Yekaterinburg in Siberia, and has spread to other cities including Moscow.

Depending on what they spend of an evening, drinkers are awarded a silver, gold or platinum ‘liver’ on a pin. This then entitles them to up to 30% discounts in participating bars, assuming their real liver can take the punishment.

Which are Moscow’s best bars? Find out on the next page…

Gipsy
3, Bolotnaya Naberezhnaya
www.gipsybar.com

If not the hottest, certainly the biggest bar in town, employing no less than 60 barmen, and attracting up to 10,000 people over the peak summer weekends. There are two balconies, a big stage with a fully booked-up DJ programme, plus a swimming pool, Jacuzzi and various Amsterdam-style pissoirs in some of the four bars. Meant purely as decoration, it is not unknown for the more boozy customers to relieve themselves right there. Gipsy’s signature cocktail is a watermelon-Tequila based concoction called Babskaya Huinya (Girl’s Booze).

City Space
52, Kosmodamianskaya embankment
www.cityspacebar.com
A must-visit, London-style bar, managed by Bek Nazri, head of the Russian Cocktail Club. Located beneath the roof of the Swissotel Tower, on the banks of the Moskva River, it offers a sweeping, panoramic view of Moscow. Its excellent, if pricey, cocktails make a superb pre- or after-show drink. Its signature cocktail is the Moscow Spring Punch (vodka, raspberry, lime, ginger and honey).

Noor
23, Tverskaya
www.noorbar.com
With its 12 stools round the bar and a maximum capacity of 100, which it easily attracts on a weekend, Noor is the complete antithesis of Gipsy. The name comes from an Amsterdam-based group of war photographers who regularly exhibit their work on the walls. It is a classic cocktail bar, serving the best Old Fashioneds and Martinis in Moscow, in cut-crystal glasses. If you speak Russian, manager Marrat Saddarov of Bartender Brothers is a real fountain of knowledge. Noor also offers free stand-up comedy.

Projektor
2/5/4 Slavanskaya Square
A hot new bar-restaurant in Moscow, with a ‘liquid food’ menu, created by leading Russian mixologist Alexander Kan, another member of the Bartender Brothers. The design is an extraordinary fusion of industrial and British-Indian colonial styles. The latter is reflected in its signature drink, British Moonshine – a gin-based cocktail with yuzu juice and milk syrup.

Delicatessen
20 Sadovaya-Karetnaya Ulitsa
www.newdeli.ru
Delicatessen, or the Deli as it’s known to its fans, is a real bartender’s bar, and not just Russian bartenders. Foreign cocktail gurus comes here to experience the creativity of Slava ‘Booze’ Lankin, one of Moscow’s top mixologists. Instead of ordering from the menu, customers are asked what type of drink they feel like, and the bartender will mix it on the spot. The Deli is famous for its homemade infusions and barrel-aged cocktails with spirits often distilled on the premises. Ask for a ‘Chikipuki’ – a choice of shots of locally made infusions, which vary according to availability.

Main Bar
Tverskaya 22
www.mainbar.ru
This is one of Dmitri Sokolov’s many bars in the city that comprises a dance hall, a marble bar and an ‘enotheque’ for wine lovers. The extensive cocktail menu changes every couple of months. The Main Bar’s signature drink is ‘Back in Charm’ originally created by Nastya Gvak, who has been a finalist in the Bacardi Legacy cocktail competition for two years in a row.

Chainaya Tea & Cocktails
29, 1st Tverskaya Yamskaya
www.facebook.com/chainayabar
Rated Time Out Moscow’s best bar in 2012, Chainaya is owned by Roman Milostivy and has a cozy, Oriental feel. Aside from a great choice of teas, there’s a good selection of inventive cocktails. It is run like a true speakeasy, open when the owner chooses, and not according to any set times.