Downtown Montreal Has a New Russian Restaurant Complete With Cheese Boats

Montreal’s very small Russian food scene has just grown bigger, with casual restaurant Nevski now open on Stanley Street downtown.

Nevski is taking a fast-casual, lunch-friendly approach for the downtown crowd, with a short, hearty menu of dumplings and khachapuri (sometimes better known as “cheese boats”), plus cocktails for the 5 à 7 crowd.

There’s three dumpling options on the menu, including both pelmeni (smaller, meat-filled dumplings) and vareniki (a slightly larger option, very similar to eastern European pierogi). Those options are beef-pork-veal pelmeni with tarragon sauce, a salmon-crème fraîche pelmeni dish with lemon sour cream, and oh-so-classic potato-onion vareniki with bacon and sour cream.

Then are the khachapuri — while there’s variations of this dish, the form it takes at Nevski is that of Adjarian khachapuri, a boat-shaped dough creation filled with cheese and topped with a runny egg. While the dish is Georgian rather than Russian, it’s common in Russia. Here, they’re available in classic format with just cheese, or variations with spinach, smoked sausage, or Russian meatballs. The cheesy, simple perfection of khachapuri helped it gain a foothold in some parts of North America in recent years, it’s a rarity in Montreal (Décarie Boulevard restaurant Georgia is one of the very, very few other places to serve it).

The Nevski menu is rounded out with a couple of soups (including borcht, of course), and some house creations — a beef and mushroom-laden stroganoff poutine, and a Russian spin on the hot dog, done with smoked sausage. For dessert, get pishki (Russian doughnuts) rolled in cinnamon sugar.

And it’s all very affordable — the menu maxes out at $14. Those looking to spend more can get house cocktails — Nevski’s space, decked out with Soviet kitsch, makes it a novel spot for after-work drinks (coffee options also feature, for the daytime crowd).

STATUS — Nevski is open at 1228 Stanley from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday to Friday, 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, and 5:30 to 11 p.m. Saturday.

• Nevski [Official]
• Khachapuri Has Crossed Over Into a New York Essential Dish [ENY]