Stavka Glasgow Russian Restaurant

"I believe in one thing only, the power of human will" - Joseph Stalin (1878-1953).

And here's a fine example of human will reigning triumphant over the collective propaganda!

OK, so that's a bit dramatic for a humble restaurant review, but choosing Stavka Glasgow as the best Glasgow Russian restaurant, and even more so one of the top restaurants in the City, will be seen as nothing but revolutionary in these here parts.

I'm sure there'll be a whole host of critics with nothing better to do than to tell me that the obvious choice here would've been Café Cossachok in the Merchant City, the first (and so I'm told the only) authentic Russian restaurant in Glasgow, as well as in Scotland.

First thing's first - I'm not out to objectively compare the two. Some folks prefer Cossachok. I've dined there happily many times and wouldn't fault it at all. Personally speaking though, I simply prefer Stavka Glasgow. It's just how it is really, so take a raincheck on that uprising revolt and I'll let you in on my reasoning below.

The main point is that as far as I'm concerned, Stavka's far more than just a restaurant - what you'll find here is a whole evening's entertainment all wrapped up in a big red box!

The Four Rooms of Stavka Glasgow

When you take a walk around Stavka Glasgow, you'll be bombarded at every turn with an artistic reflection of Russia's modern Imperial & Soviet history. It's divided into four rooms - Tsarskaya Dacha Cocktail Lounge, Dvor Baltika Courtyard, Imperial Rooms Restaurant, and Na Zdorovye ('the Naz Bar'). These rooms combined over Stavka's three floors all add up to one hell of a great night!

And here's where it all starts. Before we nestle into the Stavka Glasgow Imperial Rooms for dinner, we'll normally chill out first in the Naz Bar for a few drinks. The street-level bar area is always a hub of youthful energy & activity, but if you find a dark enough corner you'll fit in no matter how decrepit the passage of time has left you! It's designed in the Soviet Block style of the 1930's, all industry, Socialist misinformation & full of disgruntled workers, is seated in luxurious red leather and every wall bears the flame of communist propaganda (byom po lzheudarnikam!).


When it's time for eating, we'll head down the stairs, through the corridor inspired by the timelessly ornate tiling & brass lighting of Moscow's Underground stations, and enter the Stavka Glasgow Imperial Rooms Restaurant.

What hits you first when you saunter into this place is that it's delightfully luxurious & decadent, in direct comparison with most other restaurants in the City, where the owners' minimalist bandwagon approach to décor regretfully tends to swallow up all the warmth generated by their decent menus.

Eh?!!

OK, so maybe I'm getting a little carried away here. All I'm trying to say is that I absolutely love it when you walk into a restaurant and feel instantly immersed in a microcosm of another culture, a space completely at odds with its surroundings and that makes you forget for a while exactly where you are. Sitting down at a table in Stavka Glasgow, you'll be wrapped up passionately in the luscious ambience of Tsarist elitism. If you're lucky you'll be seated in one of the elegant semi-circular booths that are each separated by a reclaimed Russian tea urn, or on one of the 1930's red velvet-backed leather chairs emblazoned with the Imperialist Romanov Eagle.

The service from the witty & knowledgeable staff, and the intimate atmosphere generated by the Stavka Glasgow Imperial Rooms, will remain perfectly gratifying regardless of how busy it is (and on the weekends you can rest assured it'll get pretty busy), and you'll see below that the menu will enhance your pleasure until you're stuffed, content & ready to face a night of cocktails.

Speaking of which, once we've tucked away the last bite in the restaurant, our next journey will usually take us back up the stairs for cocktails, and on the way up you'll be able to take in an avant garde chronicle of Russian Socialist history & propaganda draped over the walls (including a few dark gems from the influential experimentalist, El Lissitzky), and as you reach the top you won't be able to miss the pretty imposing mural of the legendary Bolshevik powerhouse himself, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

And once you've snapped as many photos of that as you can fit onto your memory card, you'll enter what must be the Jewel in the Crown of Stavka Glasgow, the Tsarskaya Dacha Cocktail Lounge.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I'm not usually one for cocktails, and when I head here after dinner I'll normally stick to the fantastic Russian Baltika Export lager instead (yeah I know, typical bloke!). Tracey & her mates though, without wanting to imply that they make, drink & down buckets of cocktails every week, well, they make, drink & down buckets of cocktails every week, and at Stavka Glasgow their drunkenly acquired knowledge is put to the test with the seemingly unending list of concoctions on offer!

The Lounge at Stavka Glasgow was inspired by the intricate Venetian palaces of St. Petersburg, and provides a soundly aristocratic setting for you to revel in some of the exquisite wines, cocktails, liquor and quite astoundingly, the 79 different vodkas on the menu! The knowledge and expertise of the glass-twirling staff in the Lounge, befits the class of the room and makes it very easy for you to spend an entire night there thinking you're a Russian Bourgeoisie socialite, sipping refinement as you plot the downfall of the proletariat working classes mixing raggedly downstairs like the disorganised Trotskyists they are!

Well, OK. Either that or you could just have a good laugh there and sink a few with your mates...

Anne-Marie, Tracey & Debs showing off their encyclopedic knowledge of cocktails

The two Pauls & I and our own tragic attempt with cocktails!

...Once you have had a few drinks in the Lounge though, by that point you might want to kick the night up a gear or two, and downstairs in Stavka Glasgow you'll find one of the hottest gathering points in the City for students, clubbers and even old codgers like myself.

We'll normally head down to the Dvor Baltika Courtyard for the rest of the night, and are never disappointed. The look of the room is pretty outstanding in itself. You'll see at the natural wooden tables dotted around that the seating's actually created from reclaimed Navy submarine benches, and adding to the rustic effect of the Delft tiling, the stripped-down stonemasonry walls are swathed commandingly in massive Communist and Social Realism prints and an impressive ceramic map of the world.

Once you hit the utilitarian Drouth bar in the room however, your night'll be complete, because turn around on any given night and you'll experience one of the most electric live entertainment nights in the City from the resident & guest superstar DJs, live band karaoke, and if you time it well, one of the regular Nations of Stavka events.

That said, even if you're getting on a bit and that kind of thing isn't your cup of tea, you can always grab a table back at the Naz Bar and while away the hours there instead.

Either way, whatever your age & desires I can safely suggest that Stavka Glasgow is worth a try. I go there on a regular basis and always come out with a huge smile (of course, that may well be the effects of the Baltika, but let's move on...), so check out the menu below, and if you don't want to spend the whole night there, just pop into the Imperial Rooms using the external door to the side of the pub and head back the way you came in once you're done.

Chtob vse byli zdorovy!

So what's there to eat in Stavka Glasgow?

Russian cuisine doesn't suit everyone's taste, so if you've not tried it before, eating at Stavka Glasgow will help ease you in, because whilst it does lay out some mouth-watering authentic dishes with fancy names that might otherwise knock you off-guard, it also caters for the Glesca palate, with superb wood oven pizzas (albeit that they're sometimes named after important figures in Russian history), traditional but expertly finished pub burgers & pasta, and Soviet Steak that you'll be pleased to find will be cooked perfectly to order.

However, given that arguably, generations before global cuisine became the norm it had been practised already in most parts of 'old' Russia, in other words from the Black Sea to the Baltic, you can rest assured that when it comes to good food & culinary experimentation, the Russians know their stuff. Russian cuisine often gets tarred by ignorance with the reputation that it's all just derived from the 'one-pot supper' that peasants & workers looked forward to after a long, cold day in the fields or factories, all slow-burning carbohydrates & fat with high protein & vegetables, stale rye bread and porridge covered in beetroot & cabbage. However, just wipe away any misconceptions you might have had before about Russian food, and you could end up being pleasantly surprised by how rich and packed with varied flavours it actually is.

So when you come to Stavka Glasgow, you might fancy dipping into a whole new culture by opting out of the Western options, as imaginative & tempting as they may be, and by tucking instead into some blinis (Slavic crêpes which can be sampled as starters with various sauces, or as desserts drizzled in chocolate & flavoured vodka), or kokots (fantastic little dishes with chicken strips or pretty much anything else you'd like - I definitely recommend the mince & onion one, which is minced beef cooked with onions & carrots, and topped with mash potato sprinkled with cheese, a tiny dish crammed with flavour that could very well fill you up before the main course!).

My personal favourite main course is the absolut chicken, which is a really succulent breast of chicken in a pink peppercorn & vodka cream sauce - if you've not tried food with vodka sauce before, I can tell you it's a whole new avenue of delight! I also like the chicken voodoo, in which the chicken's cooked in a black Cajun marinade & served with creamy mushroom sauce & thick cut chips.

The menu tends to change quite regularly, but when you get a table there you might want to ask the chef if he can make some borsch, the salmon petrovskie, or some hearty beef stroganov, as they're very popular dishes that can be rustled up quickly if you're nice enough to the staff (although don't go looking for me if they're having a busy night and can't accommodate you outside the menu!).

You can also try the Stavka Glasgow bar menu in the other rooms depending on what time you visit. I'll leave it there though, simply because the menu changes so much that it's been pretty difficult to decide what to mention. I reckon however, that no matter what you see on the menu, when you sit yourself down here you'll not be disappointed if you simply opt for a Russian-sounding dish you've never tried before.

How to get to Stavka Glasgow

This fantastic Glasgow Russian restaurant stands out from most other places on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow.

Sauchiehall Street can be found in the City Centre simply by walking to the top of Buchanan Street where the Royal Concert Hall is, and turning left. That takes you onto Sauchiehall Street, and to get to Stavka Glasgow, you just have to keep walking straight, beyond the pedestrian part and a few blocks or so towards the end of the street at Charing Cross. You'll pass the bar & restaurant on your left so watch out for the sign.

As I say, if you're dodging the bar and simply heading to the Imperial Rooms Restaurant, there's a separate doorway from the street you can use, and when you walk down the velvet stairs you can gawk at how great you look in the massive mirror facing you!

If you need any more assistance getting there however, please let me know.

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