Outside of Brooklyn’s gargantuan Russian banquet halls—where the flow of vodka makes up for the taste of the food—Russian restaurants in New York are few and far between. In Manhattan, along with the Russian Tea Room, which opened in 1927, Russian Samovar is one of the keepers of a Russian culinary flame, serving both the cuisine of the Tzarist aristocracy—with plenty of smoked salmon and caviar—along with dishes enjoyed by Russia’s common people, like pelmeni dumplings in broth and both cold and hot borscht.
Russian Samovar dates to 1986, when Roman Kaplan, ballet master Mikhail Baryshnikov and Nobel laureate poet Joseph Brodsky invested in a Theater District space that was once an old Sinatra hang-out. Brodsky’s favorite table is still preserved there, and Baryshnikov's baby grand piano is still used by nightly performers. A romantic scene with Baryshnikov and Sarah Jessica Parker in “Sex and the City” was filmed there.
Today Kaplan’s daughter Vlada runs Russian Samovar with the spirit in which it was conceived, and the décor reflects a kind of sentimental nostalgia you feel in the rosy glow cast by fringed lampshades and the photos and artwork that line the walls. Of course, the visiting musicians indulge guests with all the familiar Russian songs, from “Dark Eyes” to “Those Were the Days, My Friend,” intermingled with some Cole Porter and Billy Joel.
With my wife and brother-in-law, both with Russian blood and both fluent in the language, we ate from all over the menu and found it convincingly authentic from the pickled herring ($16) to the beef stroganoff ($29) to a sour cream cake called le smetannik ($13). Portions are generous. The menu is amazingly long, the wine list absurdly short and the service staff, on two visits, seemed immune to guests trying to get their attention.
Your table might wish to splurge with a lavish Imperial fish platter ($150) piled high with black and red caviar, smoked butterfish, smoked salmon, two varieties of herring and thin blini. The lovely rose-red borscht ($13) is based on a family recipe that goes back seven decades, and right now there is a cold summer version ($12). Eggplant “caviar” ($15) is a sweet and sour puree of eggplant, tomato and peppers.
A complement to the fish platter is a meat platter ($30) with a veal roulade, excellent beef tongue, smoked meats and the dried, cured beef called basturma. Satsivi ($18) is a Georgian specialty of chicken cut into a dice and aggrandized with a wonderful coriander-and-walnut sauce.
One of the cherished comfort foods of Russian home cooking is pelmeni, light veal and pork dumplings in a rich chicken broth with sour cream ($14), or the alternative pelmeni stroganoff with a topping of beef stroganoff ($23), which is as much a hearty main course as it is an appetizer. Similar dumplings, filled with a choice of potato, onion, mushroom or cherry, called vareniki ($15) are pan-fried with sour cream—the cherries are something special. Khachpuri ($15) is a flakey three-cheese pastry of a kind found throughout Eastern Europe.
The seafood is of good quality, though I prefer the Russian meat dishes, including that hearty beef stroganoff in its rich, creamy mushroom sauce, accompanied by buttered noodles, mashed potatoes or kasha. Succulent, long-braised lamb country style ($33) is a fine alternative for a hefty main course. Oddly enough, the only dish that disappointed me was the chicken Kiev ($29), whose seasoned butter under the skin is supposed to gush out after being cooked and the chicken sliced open. Here the chicken itself was bland and overcooked, not helped by the dribble of butter that emerged.
For dessert, I liked that sour cream le smetannik cake, and there’s also a good honey cake called medovik ($14).
For a true Russian closing, have the Russia tea ($7), which is served with cherry preserves and lemon on the side. By tradition, sipped in a small glass with a spoon in it with which to eat the preserves, it is an ending that makes Russians pine for a time when, as the words of “Those Were the Days, My Friend” go, “Oh my friend we're older but no wiser/For in our hearts the dreams are still the same.”
RUSSIAN SAMOVAR
256 West 52nd Street
212-757-0168
