Mina

«Mina» on Malaya Nikitskaya is the fourth Moscow project of St. Petersburg restaurateur Aram Mnatsakanov, known for «Probka», «Mama Tuta» and «Maritozzo». The restaurant occupies the space of a former secondhand bookshop, and its walls are lined with white tile bearing gold cracks in the kintsugi technique. The cuisine here is Italian-Lebanese, and this combination shows up literally in every menu item: hummus and labneh sit alongside pizza and pasta, baba ganoush and muhammara alongside lamb kofta, and octopus is served with 'nduja and sweet potato. Dishes are brought out on the distinctive tableware already recognizable from Mnatsakanov's other projects. The menu was created by a whole team of chefs from different countries: Frenchman Nicolas Lorieux, Lebanese-Italian Gilberto Nasser, Italian Manuel Suraci, Georgian Gia Khuchua and Russian Vyacheslav Morozov. Guzel Mukhametdinova became the restaurant's head chef. The average check at «Mina» is 3,000 to 6,000 rubles; you can get there from Tverskaya, Krasnopresnenskaya, Barrikadnaya, Pushkinskaya or Chekhovskaya metro stations.