Astoria Russian Bistro

I would NEVER go into this place again! I was craving and looking forward to their beef stroganoff. I drove 25 min in traffic to get there, after calling and making sure they were open. I walked in at 1:30 pm in the afternoon on a Friday. The lights were off and the lady (I assume owner) turned them on. The place was Empty. She was not a very polite person. Let me reiterate, the lady was RUDE! We were told we only had a small selection to order from as they do not do a full menu at lunch. Nothing was on their small list I wanted. I asked for other things, she replied, «No. Come back at 5pm if you want that.» She replied that very harshly. I said I was leaving and wouldn’t be back, and she said that was quite fine with her! Customer service has gone wayyyyy down in America. I am placing a 1 star and wish I could give them a 0. I am sorry this review has nothing to do with food, as I was not given the opportunity to try anything on the menu.

I went to this restaurant with friends. The food was absolutely deliciously. I had borscht soup which was served hot. This was not the same as that pickled beet soup that is usually served. It was incredibly good. I have to go back because I keep thinking about the taste. I also had the lamb kabobs which had so much flavor. A friend had the beef stroganoff that I tasted and it also was fabulous. We shared the cherry dumplings for dessert and they were scrumptious. Can’t wait to go back.

Wow, authentic Russian cousine. Owners are genuine, from the motherland and very good host. Prepared to be welcomed in an Eastern Europe sort of way and served great food and very strong, delicious beer. Food is heavy, be prepared for gastric workout. Want real treat, come in May during Russia’s victory day holiday.
I drive up from Memphis and make this a stop every chance I get when in STL. If you speak Russian, in for real treat. English is entire staffs’ second language.

The service was wonderful, waitress was very friendly and made a good recommendation for a Russian beer, tasty. The Stroganoff was AWESOME but my Chicken Kiev was so hard and dry I couldn’t cut it with a knife. I would go back to try other dishes but I wouldn’t go there for the Kiev again.

This is one of my favorite restaurants in St. Louis. I could eat the stroganoff and borscht everyday. The golubsky and dumplings are amazing as well. Everything is homemade and you can tell. So fresh and so good!!!

For a few months we hemmed and hawed about buying a Groupon for Astoria, and I am really glad we did. The food here is out of this world! So nice to go to a lovely restaurant with white tablecloths, and great service. I ordered pelmeni and golubtsy and my husband got the solyanka and a lamb kebab. Everything was perfect… we will definitely go back!

Astoria!!! One of the greatest secrets in St. Louis is a little restaurant called Astoria. From the street outside you see a simple diner, but once you walk through the front door, a whole new adventure is waiting to greet you. You will experience a little bit of Russia in both atmosphere and taste. Astoria is a restaurant that has served Russian cuisine for the past fifteen years, but there are still many people who have not discovered this hidden treasure.
When you walk into the Astoria restaurant, your first impression might be that it is a simple place. It is a small restaurant with dark red carpet, beige painted walls, big mirrors on one side of the restaurant, and a large Italian painting displaying women in old dresses, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes. There is a bar, which is made of wood and has shiny glasses hanging down from it. Also, you can see many different kinds of Russian vodka and beer on the shelves. The bar is located next to the kitchen and hallway by the restroom. Furthermore, there is a small stage with musical equipment, sound, lights and a dancehall. They have a background of Italian and French music that makes atmosphere comfortable. In the whole restaurant there are about twenty tables covered with white sheets and served with scarlet color napkins under silverware next to the small plates for bread and glasses for water.
In the weekends they have big parties for Russian and Ukrainian people out of fifty or more. They come to celebrate birthday, anniversary, wedding, New Year’s Eve, Women’s day, Valentine’s Day, etc. When they celebrate special events the restaurant looks different, because of the decorations on the tables such as center pieces with different flowers and blue lights. Usually, parties start at 7:00 pm. People come over earlier. Russian women are dressed in elegant evening dresses with expensive jewelry and accessories. Men are dressed in suits with regular or bow ties. People are ready to have delicious food and dance.
All the tables are served a lot of different kinds of Russian salads such as olivie, spring salad, chicken salad, and crab salad. Besides salads, there are many appetizers such as a seafood plate, soleniya (home-​style marinated vegetables), red caviar served with crepes, and seledka (marinated herring with onions and dill). After people eat appetizers and salads, servers bring entries: chicken tabaka (whole Cornish hen, pan seared), duck baked with fruits inside, rock of lamb, and lamb or pork shish kabob with red sauce. All the food tastes like it was homemade, with different flavors. Of course, Russian parties cannot go without music. The restaurant Astoria has its own live band who sings Russian, Ukrainian and American songs. After tasty food, people go to the dance floor and dance without stopping. It is so much fun to feel this atmosphere. When time turns 11:00 pm, everybody is ready for the dessert table. The sweets table is served with coffee, hot black and green tea. The host brings out a big cake and other candies. Russian people like to drink hot tea after food.
If you have never been to Russia, and would like to escape for an evening to another part of the world, come to Fee Fee and Olive to enjoy the food, music and dancing of the best kept secret in St. Louis. Come to Astoria.

Russian cuisine isn’t exactly common throughout the country and I’m thankful St. Louis has some.
The décor was elegant, the prices were pretty good even on drinks, and the food seemed pretty good.
Honestly russian isn’t my favorite cuisine, but I loved the experience. The waitress was very kind and helpful. Just one server was covering the whole restaurant. I don’t even think english was her first language. She helped steer us towards tasty options when we asked.
I had some vodka and my date had some dark but sweet russian red wine. They have beef stroganoff which I imagine has to be their most popular dish. Chicken tabaka and golubtsy (beef and rice wrapped in cabbage) were our entrees. I figure why go to a Russian place and order kabobs with all the good greek and middle eastern restaurants around?
Maybe our dessert was a type of vareniki? A white cheese filled item with a slightly crispy outside. With a fruit syrup drizzled across. My favorite part of our meal.
We had a groupon so it was definitely worth it! Someone else had a groupon for 4 they were trying to use just the two of them? They were arguing with the owner here? Now I understand why some businesses and servers give groupon a bad wrap. Dinner and a show? I felt bad for the owner. I guess some people try to cheat the system.
Dinner was a cool stroll down memory lane of my service learning trip to Ukraine. I knew I didn’t want to order any borscht (cabbage soup)! Server and staff speaks russian? Check! Very happy for this cultural experience.

I am not going to rate this place any lower, the reason being it may just may be my palate that is not as refined as I would like it to be to enjoy Russian cuisine. As I can never recall having Russian cuisine other than when I ate here. Most of the other reviews seem to like this place, so until I had a chance to give it one more try this is my review.
We had a variety of dishes and the smoked fish platter was good, the other foods were all to pickled, or sour for my liking. I enjoy sweet meats mostly or either a spicy… exploding dish full of flavor and buttery, or creamy and milky.
To me it seems as though everything had pickles or sour dill flavors to it and sometimes so much dill that is was way to overpowering for my taste buds. A lot of dill is used in their dishes. I am sure I can find something in the Russian cuisines that I would love, I will just have to try more Russian dishes to find it.
If everything is dill heavy, I will not love Russian food probably ever… so I am not going to knock this place as the server was great and the food looked very appealing. I will tell you the one part of the meal I thought was great but a bit pricey… the Russian Vodka, man that stuff was great. It is just as I named it, Russian Vodka, I have no idea what kind, but I really enjoyed that. Maybe you are supposed to have a few of the Russian vodkas and the food will be great?
Nothing bad can be said about this place by me, as I never give a restaurant a bad kick, because I have an undeveloped pallet, so by the next time I eat Russian cuisine again, hopefully my taste buds are more adapt at enjoying this cuisine.

My wife and I brought our kids and her parents. Food was pretty good, would not recommend bringing your kids. Menu is not child friendly. Waitress and staff were very good and friendly. Lamb kebab was a little dry, but still very good. The dumplings were very good. The soups were also favorites of our group. No music or dancing on Thursday night though, it was pretty quiet but nice. Had no problem with our Groupon.

Came here with a few friends to try out some Russian food and we had a good time. I’d say 3 stars is pretty accurate, its by no means bad but nothing special either. I tried the Golubtzy and the Solynaka and like the different flavors this cuisine had to offer.

The wait staff was rude to me and my girlfriend from the moment we got there and they refused to honor our Groupon even after calling a head and verifying once we got there that they would accept it. Also it seemed to take forever for our food to arrive and then it was still wrong. I will never be back

I purchased a Groupon for Astoria Russian Bistro and was very excited to use it. Unfortunately, the night we decided to make the 20 mile trek to the restaurant there was a private party taking place and they turned us away at the door. I tried to explain that we had driven all the way out and were very much looking forward to trying the restaurant and asked if they would consider allowing us to order food for take-​out. The restaurant worker who was outside the restaurant said he would check with his boss. After waiting for ~10 minutes in the cold evening air we decided to leave since he never reappeared.
Based on other reviews, I’m not at all surprised by the lack of service we experienced. It’s unfortunate because I do enjoy good ethnic food and we had high hopes for Astoria. In the end, we were extremely disappointed by the response we received and will not be returning.
Thankfully, Groupon refunded the full amount paid ($ 20) to my credit card.

LOVE this place!!!
This is where I come when I need an authentic russian home cooked meal, the borsch itself takes me back to my mothers cooking if not better!!!
Saturdays is definitely my favorite day, music dancing eating laughing
If you need help with the menu on Saturday night come to my table, I’ll be the one eating Borsch

My borscht was good if you don’t mind whole bay leaves and 5 halves of garlic in a soup. The stock was weak, even with the garlic and bay leaves it had no seasoning. I thought that maybe beets gave the light reddish tint to the borscht, but it only had carrots and maybe onion. I guess the one piece of chuck about ½ oz. was the beefy part of the borscht. Not bad for 6 bucks.
My Chicken Kiev, was burned and dry, did not have any ham, cheese, butter or anything you would expect to find. The $ 16.00 entrée did have a ½ of a sliced potato, pan fried in some form of salty grease. There were also 4 wilted (not intentional) lettuce leaves on the plate.
The servers were nice young Russian girls. They did a nice job, too bad the kitchen and management has their heads screwed on wrong.
It took 30 minutes for soup and salads to arrive, and 45 minutes for the main course to get to the table.
Crowded? Not hardly 6 other diners when we ordered, all had the same long waits that we did. The Kitchen was busy, but not working on the food orders for the 8 paying customers out front.
Rather, the kitchen was preparing for a party of 25 «friends» of the owners who just started to arrive 30 minutes after we ordered. We sat and watched as plate after plate of appetizers not on the menu delivered to the owners friends empty tables. The friends appetizers looked great.
The Astoria has a set up for live music and a dance floor. I guess Saturday night is not the prime night for guests.
While we waited and waited, three of the owners arranged and rearranged their friends table. All of the waitresses were busy placing bottles of wine and the appetizers out, family style, for when the guests arrived, bringing flowers for the owners.
If I knew that bringing a bouquet of flowers would get great looking food and prompt service, I would have stopped at Schnuck’s and brought some in.
It is nice for the owners to have a party for their friends, but not at the expense of their paying guests. Never again. Oh yes the picture of Putin hanging on the bar mirror was a nice touch!
Oh yes, they do have a TV, tuned to a Russian language station on it.
The Restaurant is closed on Sundays and they should consider closing it the other 6 nights also.
The men’s room had no soap or towels to dry your hands.
Overall, I wish we had gone to White Castle.

Many on here said it was greasy and not worth it. I 100% DISAGREE! Our meal was amazing! We had dumplings and bortsch for appetizers, kiev and lamb shishkabob foe dinner, and cheese and cherry dessert. Amazing! Great date night!

Yummy borscht!!! Love how legit the Russian cooking is… hard to find in STL.

How on earth this place got a five star review is beyond me! I used a groupon here and I was ready to walk out as soon as I sat down and just consider my groupon a donation.
Here is our night here:
We are greeted very politely and we are sat within a minute of arriving inside (fantastic!)
We are then given two small glasses of water… make that tiny.
We look at the entrée list there are only 6 maybe 7 items to choose from…
Kids do not have a menu much less anything to color with… sad
We wait 25 minutes and watch the one server going around to the 17 full tables…
We ask the waiter to come over his name is «Sergey (something like that)» he just says he is busy and can’t help us.
We then wait another bit of time, in about 32 minutes we finally get the busy Sergey to take our order… great now we have to wait for our food!
We then wait another 25 minutes for our food, I didn’t even get what I ordered! Our water glasses were never refilled so we just got to eat without anything to drink.
I think the portion sizes were cut down for grouponers… it was tiny and for $ 16 for a normal price that is ridiculous!
Some girl waitress comes and scans our groupon… i sit around another 10 minutes waiting for my check so i can pay the taxes… she never comes…
I put a whopping $ 3 on the table hoping to cover taxes with no tip… i ALWAYS tip, i just couldn’t bring myself to do this!
DO NOT BUY A GROUPON HERE!!!
Now to groupon… they refunded my groupon with groupon bucks… i couldn’t be happier :) with no hassle… i love you groupon!
Astoria I very much dislike you and will NEVER come back!
You make me angry!!!

Came to STL with my boyfriend last week and found a groupon for this place and had to go– bf is from Russia and always craves traditional food but we lack a place for it back home.
Groupon was for 2 entrees and 2 glasses of wine at 50%off, and we ordered the chicken tabaka and golubtsi (cabbage rolls) for that, but bf added a lot of other stuff to our meal as well.
Herring (tasty but overpriced for the portion size), Borscht (tasted like it was missing something) and solyanka (BF devoured but I did not like as much). Had the potato salad with our entrees, and that was probably my favorite thing.
Bf chowed down on the chicken entrée, but I was not impressed. I really liked the cabbage rolls though, and after the rest of our meal found that one was filling enough. The wine we were offered was not Russia, but because it was included with the groupon, we didn’t care much.
We had the vareniki for dessert, which was sweet and buttery (and I’m not into sweets) — I found the dish interesting but it isn’t something I’ll order again.
In closing, this place is worth a visit if you like Russian food or have an adventurous side and would like to try it, the Russian potato salad was stellar and the cabbage rolls are a tasty choice, but the meal becomes a bit pricey without much justification.
If you plan on going, definitely check for a groupon first– though they were kind of rude about us using it in the first place, even though we were their only lunch time table.

Before I start this review, I just want to state that I’m no stranger to artery-​clogging food. I can get down with a greasy porkchop (or let’s be real, a piece of fried chicken) with the best of ‘em. Deep fried twinkie? Bring it on. A double-​down from KFC? (for you suckers who don’t know, it’s a ‘sandwich’ with cheese and bacon, except instead of bread, they use fried chicken. I KNOWWWW.) An ice cream sundae the size of my head? Come on, that’s the best you’ve got?
What I’m trying to say is, I love fatty food. The greasier the better. Butter? Bring it on. I’ll bring Paula Deen to tears. I mean… have you SEEN me lately? Moo. So sorry so fat.
Anyway, I went to Astoria a few weeks ago with some friends. We arrived on a Friday night, and aside from one other group of 4, the place was pretty empty.
I had pored over the menu the day before, so I already knew what I was going to order: The Golubtzy. Cabbage stuffed with ground beef? Count me in.
My food arrived pretty quickly, and came with a side of potatoes. It looked and smelled amazing.
I quickly dug in, ignoring the orange sheen that seemed to coat everything on my plate. «Must be spicy Russian seasonings!» I told myself as I shoveled the food into my mouth. Oh, what do you mean Russian food isn’t typically spicy? I’m willfully ignorant. I have a Chemistry degree; I’m not a history aficionado.
Anyway, after a few bites, I noticed that my food wasn’t spicy. Nor did it have much flavor otherwise. So what WAS that orange glaze that coated everything? And why was it slowly solidifying?
I looked on my friend’s plate of stroganoff. Hers had the same orange glow. And so did my other friend’s plate.
I looked at them.
They looked at me.
I looked at them.
I dropped my fork.
«This,» I deadpanned, «…is fat.»
And it wasn’t the good kind of fat, my friends. You know… the kind that gives duck it’s amazing flavor, or the stuff that’s marbled into expensive steak, or even the stuff that drips down your chin when you take a bite of fried chicken and reminds you that you are, in fact, in AMURRRICAH?! THAT’S tasty fat.
No, this was flavorless, greasy fatty fat that reminds you of your mortality. Reminds you that one day, your heart WILL stop beating and you will DIE.
Needless to say, I ended my meal right then. We all did. We didn’t have the heart to tell our amazingly gorgeous, Russian-​accented server (god, I’m so shallow) that our food sucked. Instead, we silently paid, took our to-​go boxes, and left.
No wonder the place was so dead on a Friday night. Never again.