Le Café Jili Bili
If you’re after a cute little café to have your lunch in, head over to Le Café Jili Bili on Nevsky Prospect. Located on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Sadovaya Ulitsa, opposite Gostiny Dvor, this beautiful café offers breakfast, lunch and dinner and even the ever-so-Russian Business Lunch!
The menu has a wide range of different foods, but isn’t so big that it takes you an hour to decide and the food is all delicious and presented well. We can recommend the Caesar Salad and the Four Cheese pizza!
There’s a great selection of drinks too, from fancy coffees to fresh fruit juices and the service is quite impressive for a Russian restaurant! They get the orders right every time and take less than 15 minutes to bring all the food out, though you’d happily wait a little bit longer for some of their wonderful dishes!
As with all the best restaurants, there’s an excellent choice of desserts, with two pages of the menu dedicated to the sweet tooth. We can recommend the Leningrad cake: we may no longer be in Leningrad but the cake lives on.
The atmosphere is very cute and the restaurant feels cosy, with its large windows making the room feel light and airy. The staff all speak English as well, and the menu is in both Russian and English, but as always, make sure you speak Russian with the staff to keep practising!
What sets Le Café Jili Bili apart from the rest is that it’s attached to the marionnette theatre! You can enjoy a meal and then head up to the theatre to watch a puppet show that’s perfect for all ages!
