Feature

Up in Smoke By Catherine Santore and Kirill Galetski

Issue 2 December 2003 - January 2004

	Ap
	Anti smokers: Leaving a mark

Rosinter Restaurants, which owns and operates more than 70 restaurants and franchises in Moscow, including Benihana, Patio Pizza, Planeta Sushi and TGI Friday’s, has always had a policy of having some kind of nonsmoking section for customers, according to Yulia Arakcheyeva, spokesperson for the company. “It’s just another convenience for the comfort of our guests,” said Arakcheyeva. “We want everyone to be served equally well.” However, there seems to be some lack of coordination in this regard, as calls to separate Benihana and Patio Pizza locations revealed that not all of these restaurants have separate nonsmoking sections; however, they said that they have installed special “smoke eaters” so you will not sense the smoke.

Nevertheless, the Rosinter-operated TGI Friday’s chain does indeed have nonsmoking areas in all of its restaurants. Usually women and families with children sit in the nonsmoking area, said Maria Rudyak, maitre d’ of the TGI Friday’s on Leninsky Prospekt. “I hope that more restaurants will offer nonsmoking because not all customers accept sitting in a smoking area,” she said.

Mag
Smoke free: Dzhagannat Express

Unfortunately for nonsmokers, the nature of a restaurant’s food does not always guarantee a nonsmoking area. While the entire vegetarian restaurant Dzhagannat Express is nonsmoking in keeping with its theme of healthy living, the health-food serving Garmonia is, paradoxically enough, an all-smoking establishment. The difference in the two represents the disparity in the arguments for and against having a nonsmoking section.

“People who come to our restaurant are usually nonsmokers, or they come with children and they’re happy that there’s no smoking,” said Dzhagannat’s art director. A manager at Garmonia said, “We can’t really afford to be putting [nonsmoking] limitations on our clientele. Unfortunately, we don’t have a separate hall as such. However, we do have booths that feature hookahs.”

Apart from traditional restaurants and some of the foreign chains, the food court in the Atrium is another option for smoke-free dining. Most of the city’s coffee chains are also nonsmoking. Some restaurants’ nonsmoking sections are much smaller than their main halls. The Japanese restaurant chain Yakitoria’s new branch on Nizhegorodskaya Ulitsa has a small nonsmoking section with 10 tables, compared with the main hall’s 35 tables.

“A lot of people ask if we have a nonsmoking room, so I’m sure that we have to have one,” said Marina Yurchenko, manager of The Tunnel, an expat-orientated restaurant. “I think that all good restaurants in Moscow must have a nonsmoking room,” she said.

Garmonia
1/15 Kotelnicheskaya Nab. (M. Taganskaya)
915-7102, noon-11pm

Riviere
4 Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya Ul. (M. Kievskaya)
243-0977, noon-midnight

Accenti
7 Kropotkinsky Per. (M. Park Kultury)
246-1515, noon-11pm

Bosco
3 Red Square (M. Okhotny Ryad)
1st floor of GUM, 929-3182, 9am-11pm

Benihana
5 Pushkin Square (M. Pushkinskaya)
209-1023, noon-midnight

Planeta Sushi
2/1 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ul. (M. Mayakovskaya)
250-9509, noon-6am

Santa Fe
5/1 Mantulinskaya Ul., Building 6 (M. Ulitsa 1905 Goda)
256-1487/2126, noon-midnight, Thu.-Sat. noon-3am

Dzhagannat Express
11 Ul. Kuznetsky Most (M. Kuznetsky Most)
928-3580, 11am-11pm

Tunnel
7 Lubyansky Proyezd (M. Kitai-Gorod)
937-4101, 24 hours