Your vicar would not approve. The pulpit contains a DJ playing thumping house
anthems, the altar is a gold-topped circular bar, and historic religious
icons are hidden behind billowing drapes. A packed congregation of boozy
revellers is punctuated by long-limbed podium dancers sporting G-strings,
basques, four-inch heels and fake machineguns.
As a 2am fashion show of top models sashays across the roof of the bar in the
converted Moscow church, the American property developer who has taken over
Club Leto to celebrate ten years of booming business invites me into the VIP
area. Casting his hand over the bacchanalian scene, like an indulgent Roman
emperor, he says: “Enjoy.”
It’s not only generous — private tables in the Russian capital’s clubs start
at around £3,000 a night — it’s also the perfect introduction to the city’s
recent explosion of elite bars, clubs and gourmet dining. Moscow isn’t just
embracing excess, it’s giving it a huge, vodka-drenched bear hug.
“It’s one of the fastest developing places on earth,” says Harriet Warren,
author of A Hedonist’s Guide to Moscow. “Forget the Kremlin,
the city’s real heart is now the nightlife, shops and restaurants. New
places open every week.”
All of which makes for a fascinating long weekend. Several hours before Club
Leto, I tested the city’s culinary renaissance at a restaurant owned by
Arkady Novikov. The “Blini Baron” is a classic product of Russia’s economic
free-for-all. He now owns 28 gourmet restaurants and more than 40 chain
outlets.
Galereya, opened recently in the literati and glitterati hotspot of Tverskaya,
is surrounded by Mercedes, Hummers and BMWs. The restaurant’s interior decor
lives up to its guests’ transport, dripping with super-sized black-and-white
photographs of models with more cheekbones than clothes. Past guests include
Anna Kournikova and Roman Abramovich, but tonight was largely middle-aged
men with beautiful but hard-faced younger women.
But if the people-watching is excellent, so is the food. Novikov’s early
establishments were known for excess — belly dancers, cockfights,
under-floor aquariums — but now the cooking is centre stage. Galereya’s
Euro-fusion was sensational. One bite of Kamchatka crab with aubergine and
who cared that the staff couldn’t smile.
Whether you want Italian, Indian, Uzbek or the Russian cuisine of Café
Pushkin’s superbly restored 18th-century pharmacy, the ubiquitous Novikov’s
restaurants are hard to avoid. I tried Vanil, whose French-Japanese fusion
attracts the likes of President Putin and Prince Albert of Monaco.
Both meals were excellent but the prices can cause serious indigestion.
Vanil’s veal, at £42 a plate, might not worry an oligarch, but it’s a shock
for tourists. And impossible for locals. Muscovites earn well above Russia’s
monthly average of £140, but a couple of Galereya’s Dover soles wouldn’t
leave much for rent.
Yet it’s remarkable that it’s happening at all. Fourteen years ago, unless you
were a Communist dignitary, luxury bars, restaurants and clubs belonged to
another world. Casinos did not exist. Now there are hundreds, more than any
other city on the planet, with many of them, such as the millionaires’
favourite Metelitza, straddling the startling neon drag of Novy Arbat, like
a very low-rent Vegas strip.
The most visible barometer of change is the GUM. The bare shelves of the state
department store were a watchword for communism’s economic failure. Now I
walked into a heady cloud of Europop and Lancôme floating above a beautiful
Gothic mall of more than 1,000 shops containing an ever-rising number of
designer names. With prices roughly a third higher than at home, it’s better
sightseeing than shopping. For anyone who grew up during the Cold War it’s
astonishing to see capitalist flagships nuzzling against the heart of the
old Soviet empire. I walked through MaxMara’s private entrance into the
funky retro Bosco Bar and found sharply dressed shoppers eating designer
tomato gelato directly opposite Lenin’s mausoleum.
The air grew even richer in nearby Tretyakovsky Street. Its 200 cobbled yards
have their own piped music, entrance arches and security heavies guarding
Tiffany, Armani, Gucci, Prada, and the luxurious Tretyakov Spa, an organic
retreat discreetly located above Hermès.
Russians’ passionate affair with vodka has produced a booming bar culture. At
30/7, the heaving crowd wedged inside its long, low-lit interior pulsed with
alcohol-fuelled abandon. The pace slowed at Prado, where a guard in Russian
naval uniform ushered us into a mellow den of abstract sculptures and subtle
Art Deco lights. And it ground to near standstill at Milk and Honey, a
kitsch explosion of chandeliers, stuffed animals dripping with jewellery and
squashy leather sofas, co-owned by Lord Bath’s son.
For a less bohemian, more spectacular tipple, I headed to the top of the
Swissôtel, opened recently on an island on the Moskva River two miles from
the Kremlin. The City Space Bar on its 34th floor floats over Moscow like a
spaceship, offering astounding views through its sloping glass sides. Wine
at £20 a glass can also induce giddiness.
The 235-room hotel has joined the Park Hyatt in blazing a fresh trail of
contemporary style. Rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows and cool, muted
tones. It has an Amrita spa, state-of-the-art fitness centre and cavernous
lobby with etched murals and vast chandeliers of fragmented glass.
It’s the latest evidence of seismic change in the city’s accommodation scene.
The Kempinski, a hefty Molotov cocktail toss from Red Square, is being
revamped and this year heralds the opening of the Ritz-Carlton, followed by
the Four Seasons in 2007. Two hundred new hotels are planned over the next
two decades.
This isn’t Moscow’s first outbreak of bling. Visit the Kremlin’s Armoury
Palace and exhibits such as Catherine the Great’s silver Bible inlaid with
3,000 sparklers, the 190-carat Orlov Diamond and £145 million worth of
Fabergé eggs suggest the tsars knew a thing or two about serious indulgence.
I was merely witnessing a return to pre-revolutionary form — and it shows no
sign of ending. Back at Club Leto, where fresh podium dancers were gyrating
in micro-bikinis, I met John Warren, an expat Briton who made and lost a
million here by his mid-twenties and now sells gourmet sausages. “There’s so
much energy,” he said. “People want everything to excess. God, it’s
fantastic.”
Need to know
Getting there: British Airways (0870 8509850, www.ba.com)
flies twice daily from London Heathrow to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport from
£229 return including taxes: 0870 850 9850, www.ba.com.
Where to stay: Swissôtel Krasnye Holmy (00800 637 94771,
www.swissotel.com) from 225 Euros£154 per room per night for a double.
Travel Russia (0207431 4045020-7317 7434, www.travelrussia.net) offers three
nights’ B&B at the Swissôtel from £350, including transfers but
not flights: 020 7431 4045, www.travelrussia.net.
Where to eat: Galereya (00 7 095 937 4544) 27 Petrovka
Ulitsa, Chekovskaya. Vanil (202 3341) 1 Ostozhenka Ulitsa, Kropotkinskaya.
Café Pushkin (229 9411) 26A Tverskoi Bulvar, Pushkinskaya.
Where to party: Club Leto — changes location with the season
— ask your concierge for its latest venue, or see local press. Milk and
Honey (928 9947) 38 Myasnit Skaya Ulitsa, Kitai Gorod. 30/7 (209 5951) 30/7
Petrovka Ulitsa, Chekovskaya. Prado (784 6969) 2 Slavyanskaya Ploshchad,
Kitai Gorod. Bosco Bar (925 3703) GUM,
3 Red Square.
Further information: A Hedonist’s Guide to Moscow (Filmer,
£13.99 or £11 & P&P at www.hg2.com).
