What is it about Paris cabarets and Russian émigrés that brings out everyone’s inner gypsy? It’s got to be more than borscht, no? Is it Garbo in Ninotchka? Ingrid Bergman in Anastasia? Say “привет” (we hope that means “hello”) to IKRA, the newest Cossack café in town.
For years, Nikita, the Russian cabaret in the 16th arrondissement, has been the classic Russkie rendezvous in Paris, with balalaika players, vast vodka resources, and red velvet banquettes that play to our White Russian, Tzarist fantasies.
IKRA, which opened on the Left Bank last October, takes a different tack.
“We wanted Russian, but not so traditional,” says owner Alain Kocer, an Istanbul-born, Macedonian architect, about his first foray into the Paris restaurant fray.
The décor is sleekly contemporary (with a virtual fireplace) and a big red piano where artists like Moscow-via-Tashkent Svetlana hold court. Chef Clément Bouldoires provides a lighter spin on classics like koulibiac, beef stroganoff, and pear vatrouchka. And of course, there’s caviar… which is what ‘ikra’ means back in the ex-USSR.
Director Mischa Korotkov, from Saint Petersburg, doubles as barman and neatly juggles bottles à la Tom Kruzki. Not satisfied with pouring Stoli all night, Mischa invented a colorful collection of molecular (not Molotov) cocktails like vodka/manzana-based Matrechka or apricot/amaretto Russian Gigolo that get an extra taste-burst from Marx-ist (that’s Thierry, not Karl) fruit ‘pearls’.
At happy hour (every day from 3 pm to 8 pm), these adventurous cocktails cost only 5€. There’s a comrade-friendly 14.90 € lunch too. A three-course dinner for two is approximately 70€ before wine. Last dinner orders at 11:30 pm … 365 days of the year.
IKRA, 119 Boulevard Raspail, 6th arrondissement. Tel: 01 45 48 12 33. Metro Notre Dame des Champs. Open daily from 7:30 am to 2 am.
© 2013, Corinne LaBalme
Corinne LaBalme, a Paris-based writer, journalist and editor, is currently working on development of a series lifestyle documentaries for Muses Productions.