Booking a restaurant online in Moscow or St. Petersburg as a foreigner has a problem almost no one mentions: most Russian platforms (ToMesto, LeClick, Кубик, RUSSPASS) require a Russian phone number with a +7 prefix to verify the account by SMS. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck. There are several routes that do work for a foreign traveler, and I’ll walk you through them in this article, ordered from the easiest to the most advanced.
1. Ask the front desk at your hotel
It might sound a bit old-school, but this is still the most reliable method and the one I recommend first. The front desk at any decent hotel in Moscow or St. Petersburg is used to making restaurant reservations on behalf of guests, and they do it for free.
The advantages are obvious:
- You don’t need to speak Russian or navigate websites in Cyrillic.
- You don’t need a Russian phone or a Russian card.
- The receptionist speaks Russian and knows the local restaurant scene: if the place you’ve chosen isn’t taking more reservations or isn’t quite right for your plans, they’ll point you toward alternatives.
- If anything comes up (change of time, cancellation, change in the number of guests), the restaurant can contact the front desk instead of you.
This option is especially useful for the top-end restaurants where reservations get tricky (Café Pushkin, White Rabbit, Twins Garden, Mansarda, Palkin) and for the more authentic local restaurants, which often don’t have an English-language website or a proper online booking system.
2. The restaurant’s own website
This is the most direct and clean method when it works. Most mid- to high-end restaurants in Moscow and St. Petersburg have their own website with a reservation form that simply asks for your name, date, time, number of guests, and a contact phone number. The key here is that the phone number isn’t verified by SMS: it’s only used so the restaurant can call you if there’s an issue. So you can put your home country phone number without any problem.
But there’s an important caveat: not all websites are in English. The best-known restaurants are (they usually have an English version, and sometimes a Chinese one too), but many local restaurants only have their site in Russian. In those cases, the trick is to use Google Translate (or the built-in translator in Chrome or Safari) to read the form: the fields are usually very basic.
Top Moscow restaurants with an English-language website
- Café Pushkin: cafe-pushkin.ru/en. The restaurant’s website is in English and the patisserie next door (same group) has an online reservation form. For the main restaurant, the most reliable option is to call +7 495 739-00-33 or ask the hotel front desk to book.
- White Rabbit: own website with an English-language form. If you want a table with a panoramic view of Moscow, they’ll ask for a deposit of 10,000 rubles per person at least 24 hours in advance, which requires a Russian card. For a standard table, no deposit is required.
- Twins Garden (2 Michelin stars before the sanctions): twinsgarden.ru/en. Has a “Reserve a Table” form in English. They only serve tasting menus. After submitting the form, you’ll need to wait for the manager’s confirmation by email.
- MANUL: manulmoscow.com. Siberian cuisine restaurant that opened in 2025, English-language website.
Top St. Petersburg restaurants with an English-language website
In St. Petersburg, a good share of the best restaurants belong to the Ginza Project group, which has a very useful centralized website in English: en.ginza.ru/spb/restaurant. From there you can browse their dozens of restaurants (Mansarda, Tsar’, Capuletti, Mamaliga, Pryanosti & Radosti, etc.), see photos and menus, and access the booking system. A few examples:
- Mansarda: spectacular views of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Staff with a good level of English.
- Tsar’: traditional Russian cuisine in a 19th-century setting, right in the center.
- Palkin (on Nevsky Prospekt, historic since 1785): own website, phone +7 812 703-53-71. The staff speaks English.
- Cococo Bistro: modern, creative Russian cuisine, reservation form on its website.
For local restaurants without an English-language website, my advice remains the same: ask the hotel front desk to book (section 1) or, if you’d rather do it yourself, try the next route.
3. Yandex Maps + Telegram
This is the most interesting option for someone already in Russia who’s wandering around the city looking for a place to eat. Russians use Yandex Maps much more than Google Maps (Yandex has better local coverage, more complete listings and more up-to-date reviews), so it’s a good idea to install it on your phone when you arrive.
The “Reserve a table” button on Yandex Maps
When you search for a restaurant on Yandex Maps, many listings show a green “Забронировать столик” (“Reserve a table”) button. This button can lead to two different places:
- The reservation form on the restaurant’s own website: usually a basic form (name, date, time, number of guests, phone). The reservation is generally confirmed by email.
- An integrated Yandex Maps form in Russian. Use a translator if you don’t understand something, although the form is very basic.
Online reservations on Yandex Maps are growing fast (more than 2,000 restaurants already integrated, mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg) and cover most of the major chains and restaurant groups: Novikov Group, ilFORNO Group, Rappoport’s restaurants, Pinskiy & Co, Bazar Family and others.
Important note about Yandex Go and Yandex Eats: these apps sometimes get confused. Yandex Go is the Russian “super-app” that bundles taxis, scooters, market and food delivery. The food section inside Yandex Go (which also works as a standalone app, Yandex Eats) is mainly designed for ordering food delivery, not for booking a table. The table-reservation feature is relatively new (launched in November 2024) and still expanding. In other words: Yandex Eats is mostly for getting sushi delivered to your hotel, not for booking Café Pushkin.
Telegram: the option many travelers overlook
Many Russian restaurants have a Telegram account visible on their Yandex Maps listing or on their website (it usually appears as @restaurant_name). Sending a brief message in English to book a table tends to work well: they reply with availability and confirm right there, without you needing to call or have a Russian phone number.
WhatsApp is no longer an option in Russia: it’s currently fully blocked and the domains were removed from the national domain name system. If a restaurant’s website lists “WhatsApp for reservations”, it’s probably outdated information.
What if I don’t want to book?
One last note that may save you some hassle: unless you’re heading to a top-end restaurant (the Moscow Michelin places, the best-known ones in central St. Petersburg), or it’s a weekend or public holiday, or you’re going at peak time (especially dinner between 8:00 and 10:00 pm), most Russian restaurants will let you walk in without a reservation and seat you without any problem.
Moscow and St. Petersburg have a huge food scene and many places, especially Georgian, Uzbek and traditional Russian restaurants, work perfectly well with walk-ins. If you get hungry while you’re out and about, no need to plan ahead: walk in, see if there’s a table, and sit down. Booking is useful when you have a specific restaurant in mind and don’t want to be turned away, but if you’re just exploring Russian food on the fly, it works just as well.
