London, Russian Restaurant Guide

The ‘Press for Champagne’ button has become an Instagram classic – made famous by the original Soho branch of Leonid Shutov’s decadent diners, which provide luxurious treats like caviar and beef Wellington all served in a sumptuous environment, whose dark wood and polished surfaces evoke the deco glam of a trip on the Orient Express. “A fun place for a celebration” or romance, they are also notably “overpriced” – a factor harder to overlook in the era of straitened post-Covid expense accounts, when splashy business dining (for which they are a favourite) has been reined in. Perhaps that’s why the renamed ‘Bob Bob Cité’ – a “nightclub-like space” occupying a floor of the City’s Cheesegrater – has failed to make waves, and generates very few (albeit positive) reports. In August 2023, the group (celebrating its fifteenth year) started a new, 56-seat spin-off, a few doors down from the original, called ‘Bébé Bob’: the offering here will shoehorn champagne and caviar into a more dressed-down offering, alongside rotisserie chicken as the main event.