Kavkaz Kaliningrad shabby chic - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

A Trip Around the Caucasus

Updated 10 December 2023 | First published 2020 ~ Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad

Housed as it is on the ground floor of a rather large building across the road from Victory Square and directly in front of the colossal shopping centre built in Königsberg style, it would be inaccurate to say that the Kavkaz Restaurant is ‘tucked away’ or that it is ‘off the beaten track’, but by not facing the main street and not advertised in any demonstrable fashion, you could say that it is reclusive, although no sooner had we entered the place than an editorial decision was taken, as I changed the word ‘reclusive’ to ‘exclusive’.

Immediately on stepping inside through the great glass double doors, words such as classy, quality, posh and ultimately very expensive chinged into my mind one after the other like metal tabs in an old-fashioned cash register, the last more forcibly than the rest, although in fairness I was about to discover that looks expensive does not mean is expensive.

For a few moments I was lost in the vastness. There are big restaurants and bigger restaurants, but this was one of the biggest. The metal tabs were singing again: huge, massive, cavernous, grand, and I must not forget impressive!

It is being this impressed that makes it happen to you rather than you making it happen. A gaggle of pretty young waitresses, dressed in regulation black skirts and white blouses, hover near the entrance of the restaurant ready to escort you to your preselected, pre-booked table. Coats, hats and any other encumbrances are checked in with the cloakroom attendant, and before you know it you have been whisked away majestically to your seat.

Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad

The Kavkaz Restaurant is a Georgian restaurant and its theme the Georgian Caucasus. As a Romanticist celebration of all that is vast, time-honoured and traditional about Georgia, the restaurant cannot be faulted. Its atmosphere, in great part, relies upon its shabby-chic credentials. The tall square brick pillars have a white-wash exterior, but one that is worn and ostensibly weathered; the ceiling is exposed, but the concrete is torn and ragged; the wallpaper, richly embossed with abstract designs, is scuffed; and the plasterwork screed on some of the walls has seen better days that never existed.

In the cozy secluded area where we were seated, the tribute to Georgia’s beauty continues in framed pictures of mountain men on horseback set against a sublime backdrop of snowcapped, sunlit and half-shadowed mountains. To the back of my seat, at the far end of the room, stand twin staircases equidistant apart. The sides are shabby-chic plasterwork; the tops crested with dark wooden rails. The stairs lead to a small upper storey that is confined to this area only. Brick pillars at frequent intervals, fitted with tall, pierced wooden shutters, the interior moulding of foliate design, create an illusion of sitting outside a building, of sitting below a veranda. In our sequestered corner, the illusion was so convincing that my wife and I were almost compelled to play Romeo and Juliette. But the romantic moment quickly passing, she stood upon the veranda, and I took a photo of her instead.

Olga Hart in the Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad — Olga Hart looking down at me from the balcony in *Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad*

The Georgian Caucus theme is wonderfully pervasive and permeates everywhere effortlessly. The distressed brickwork, weathered stucco and plaster wall-motifs, the exposed ceiling and idealised pictures of tribesmen riding the mountain range conspire with perfect lighting to make you feel at once relaxed and, if you are not careful, rather more bohemian and definitely a lot more gallant than you could possibly ever pretend to be. It was as well, therefore, that any further straying into the realms of fantasy was brought rapidly to a decisive conclusion by the sceptical face of Pushkin himself staring down from a portrait on high, as if Romanticism was his sole province and yours to sit in Kaliningrad drinking vodka and beer.

Romanticist images at the Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad

Looking somewhere else, I was pleased to observe the arrival of the first volley of vodkas. There were four in all, four tall glasses slotted into a wooden platter with snippets of cheese on one side. Ahh, and here was the beer as well.

Vodka at the Kavkaz — Vodka served in style at Kavkaz Restaurant , Kaliningrad, Russia

Several dishes were served up, but as this was a celebration of a friend’s birthday, my apologies ~ I could not keep track of who was eating what and who was enjoying what they were eating. However, between drinking different flavoured vodka’s, we did manage to take some photos of the restaurant’s menu, which you will find in this review.

Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad Menu — Kavkaz Restaurant , Kaliningrad, menu

Kavkaz Restaurant , Kaliningrad, soups menu

From where we were situated going to the gents was something of a trek. Fortunately, my trip across the Caucasus was amply facilitated by vodkas and beers. From where Pushkin could no longer see me, I observed, whilst trying to walk straight (these mountains are prone to vertigo) that the other side of the restaurant was just as intriguing as the one we were dining in, and another visit would be needed to try it out for size.

Mick Hart & Olga Hart expat Kaliningrad — One of many toasts at *Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad* ; Mick & Olga Hart

On returning to my table, my vodkas, beers and wife, she listened intently (as intently as her twiddling habit on her mobile phone allowed) about my trip to the other side.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “I thought you went to the toilet.”

“I’ve been to the other side,” I replied.

She looked at me for a full three seconds, with an expression that seemed to say, isn’t that that where you’ve always been, and then went back to twiddling.

Pushkin was glaring again, so I ordered a second beer and looked him in the eye. He wasn’t a bad old stick, and neither was the Kavkaz Restaurant.