Potemkin

messydesk

дн вверх 26th September 2008

1 found this helpful

I love Russian food and Potemkin is pretty much the best place I've found for it. The upstairs is a pretty standard vodka bar but it has a good selection of vodkas and large, clear windows onto the street. It's a good place to meet someone before going down for dinner.
The restaurant is downstairs and they've chosen to decorate with subtle whites and browns with the occasional splash of colour and the effect is restful and contemporary. It's also comfortable, even if you stay there for hours and hours, and the staff are friendly and efficient.
They have the expected huge range of vodkas and despite not normally drinking alcohol at all, I often have a few glasses as they're so delicious and interesting, a favourite being tarragon, cucumber or the slightly more standard but no less delicious warm honey.
Best of all though, is the food. It's simple with strong traditional flavours and unusually, they serve a good vegetarian dish, even though the choice is pretty limited it's better than you usually get for food from this region. The borscht is fabulous, definitely the best in London and my meat-loving partner recommends the pork. They've also managed to deal with the common problem in Russian cooking, blandness and stodginess with excellent spicing and spot on cooking times. I love it here.

sue

Russian Bar & Restaurant 22nd March 2007

1 found this helpful

Potemkin is a Russian restaurant & bar and it claims it is home to a "new definition of what Russian cuisine truly is". There is a small bar at street level, and a smallish restaurant downstairs - the stairs are quite narrow and steep, so not the best place if you are stair-challenged!

As with any Russian restaurant, there was a huge range of vodka's on offer. Unfortunately the one that I wanted to try was not available, though the one I ended up sampling was nice and potent.

The restaurant is colourfully decorated and has comfortable high-backed chairs and a relaxed feel. Service wasn't to good, though they were friendly enough.

We had a drink in the bar first while waiting for our friends to arrive, then went downstairs together to the restaurant. It got a bit noisy due to a large group drinking lots of vodka, but at least it is a non-smoking venue.

To start we all shared some Buzhenina (spiced roast pork, served sliced with purple horseradish). For main course we tried the Quail, the Pork Sashlyk, and the Perets Farshirovany (baked pepper). The food was quite good, but too garlicky for me.

For dessert, it was the Blinchik Tvorogom (pancake filled with sweet curd cheese), the Blinchik Vishnya (pancake filled with cherries) and the less-traditional Chocolate Truffle. We also sampled a couple of flavoured vodka's with our desserts.

Budem zdorovy!