TO EAT
KHMELI & SUNELI
ХМЕЛИ & СУНЕЛИ
About
This trendy upscale restaurant has become a go-to place for fashionable locals, businessmen, and tourists. The place is bustling from morning until night, and you often need to queue to get a table on the open terrace in front of the restaurant. Khemli & Suneli describes itself as a new type of restaurant serving local Sochi cuisine. They took into account the cuisines of local multicultural population: Georgian, Armenian, Russian, and Adygei, and reinvented them, adapted to modern realities. For a long time, Caucasian food in Sochi was associated with dirty cafés with plastic furniture, paper plates, and loud music in dubious eateries dotted around the railway station and the promenade. But Khmeli & Suneli totally changed this perception. Classy interiors, excellent service, and delicious food suddenly made locals and tourists see Caucasian cuisine in a completely different way. The menu of the restaurant includes such local staples as khinkali (large dumplings), vareniki (sweet dumplings) khachapuri (cheese pie), and shashlyk (shish kebab), together with unusual and surprising combinations by the chef. They try to use local ingredients as much as they can. Black Sea fish, alycha (cherry plum), feijoa preserves are all on the menu. They also do excellent breakfasts, and hearty set lunches on weekdays. For a snack or a dessert, head to a delicatessen & patisserie next door which is a branch of Khmeli & Suneli. You can buy food for takeaway, or have it in. They do various pies, salads, pastry and cakes.
Info
57 Roz St. (ул. Роз, д. 57), the entrance to the restaurant and delicatessen is from Karla Libknekhta Street.
+7 988 235 51 11
Mon-Sun 10am-1am
English-speaking staff
Best for breakfast/lunch/dinner
Order this: matsoni (Georgian yoghurt) with white cherry preserve; veal & pork khinkali (Georgian dumplings), big dumplings with Black Sea flounder, cream sauce, and wild spinach; Sochi kundyubki (fried dumplings) with potato and duck; Sochi-style Caeser salad; Khmeli&Suneli salad with lamb tongue and fruits; treugolnik po-ubykhsky (Ubykh-style triangle pastry) with lamb and cheese; Sochi-style solyanka soup with meat, smoked cherry plum, and hot pepper; corn soup with fish and shrimp cutlet; fried Black Sea fish; achma (Georgian cheese lasagna) with veal cheeks, mushroom cuppuccino, and cherry butter; Black Sea trout kebab; open Sochi pie with mushrooms and cream, fried chicken, and homemade cheese; wild pear kompot (sweet drink); cornelian cherry and feijoa kompot; homemade tarkhun (estragon lemonade); homemade toffee ice cream; estragon, mulberry, wild cornelian cherry sorbet; cheesecake with Krasnaya polyana snowball tree sorbet and chocolate lollipop; khinkali sweets; Caucasian preserves (white cherry, fig, walnut, cornelian cherry, quince, feijoa, Abkhazian tangerine, pine cones, etc.), bird cherry bread with coriander; Khemli&Suneli coctails with Altai vodka, cranberry juice, apple, and Abkhazian lemon; Feijoa tini with chacha (Georgian grape vodka), feijoa, and lime; Sochi mule with Altai vodka, vanilla syrup, ginger and lime; Krasnaya Polyana-style liqueur with the blend of Krasnaya Polyana herbs and berries; Sochi liqueur with feijoa; Krasnaya polyana tea blend with honey.
MY COFFEE
МОЙ КОФЕ
About
A cozy coffeeshop and a café, Moi Kofe has two branches in central Sochi, one in front of the marine passenger terminal, and the other is next to the central market and close to the railway station. The interiors of both cafés look a bit like a nursery or a grandma's house with gigantic teddy bears, floral curtains, and loads of other quirky details. Although it's called Moi Kofe (meaning 'my coffee' in Russian), the place has a huge food menu, and it's great for either breakfast, lunch or just a cup of coffee. The coffee menu is enormous, and you can get all sorts of coffee drinks from usual cappuccinos and lattes to coffee smoothies and coctails. If you choose between the two, the branch next to the marine terminal is particularly cozy and charming, with huge windows and an terrace outside the café.
Info
4 Voikova St. (ул. Войкова, д. 4)
20/4 Moskovskaya St. (ул. Московская, д. 20/4)
+7 862 291 08 81
+7 862 291 08 80
Mon-Sun 9am-12am
English-speaking staff
Best for breakfast/lunch/coffee
Order this: Varezhka coffee (honey, espresso, and whipped cream); Honey love-raf (honey latte with cream and vanilla sugar); Sho-coffee (coffee, chocolate, milk, and cinnamon), My Coffee with cookie (espresso, milk, banana, ice cream, cream, and cookie); a great variety of infusions with local herbs and berries; sweet infusions with honey, ginger, and berries; homemade chocolate; barley porridge with carrot and broccoli; potato pancakes with sour cream; red dumplings with beef and lamb; green dumplings with salmon and secret sauce; cake of Epikhin grandma (chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and chocolate glaze).
SURF COFFEE
About
Another hip coffeeshop with a strong West Coast vibe is located on a pedestrian street in the centre of Sochi. Surfboards and Polaroid photos on the wall, hipster baristas, fashionable locals crowding inside the café or sipping their iced lattes on a shady terrace in front of the coffeeshop. The coffee is excellent, and they offer both classic styles, and their own adaptations with tropical syrups and Hawaiian names. They also do lemonades, smothies, freshly squeezed juices and teas. Get a table on a terrace under magnolia treas, or at a bar counter on the front porch to watch the world go by.
Info
9 Navaginskaya St. (ул. Навагинская, д. 9)
Mon-Sun 9am-11pm
English-speaking staff
Best for coffee
Order this: Raf coffee (latte with cream and vanilla sugar); Double Hawaiian Cappuccino with coconut sauce; Vanilla Sky latte; Peppermint Mocha; Bumble Coffee with orange juice; Chillin' Tea with buckthorn and ginger.
WILLY GOOD & BREAD CHICKS
ВИЛЛИ ГУД И ХЛЕБНЫЕ ДЕВЧОНКИ
About
A nice bakery and a café with a catchy and playful name has the best сhoice of bread, pastry and tarts in the city. They do all sorts of bread including rye, wholewheat and linseed, as well as breadchicks, croissants, brioches, puffs, empanadas, and much more. But apart from baked goods they also offer hearty breakfasts, and have a big menu with salads, soups, and main dishes. Breakfast menu is not huge, but they do excellent porridges with nuts, honey, preserves, and fresh fruits. There's also an excellent terrace for people watching while having a drink which is open all year round.
Info
7 Navaginskaya St. (ул. Навагинская, д. 7)
Mon-Thu, Sun 9am-9pm, Fri-Sat 9am-10pm
Menu in English
English-speaking staff
Best for breakfast/lunch/dessert/bread
Order this: French porridge with cinnamon, lemon, and orange peels; Vegetarian Olivier salad; Willygrette salad; manty (dumplings) with pumpkin; ratatouille empanadas and quiche; puffs with various fillings; black burger with turkey; Russian cigarette cookies; caramel bread chicks; herbal tea from Krasnaya Polyana.