Bites: Russian

Potemkin, 144 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 (020-7278 6661). Mon-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat dinner. The ground-floor bar and basement restaurant is the latest Russian joint in town. Downstairs is designer-y with white walls, high-backed banquettes in regal purple, stylish carafes and glasses for the two score and more flavoured vodkas. Food's good in parts: starters such as pod shuboy (herring with beetroot), Russian salad and smoked fish star. Main courses start at £7.50 for pelmeni, to £18 for sturgeon with asparagus (£25 with red and black caviar). Great puddings. Bar lunches for £6.50.

Potemkin, 144 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 (020-7278 6661). Mon-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat dinner. The ground-floor bar and basement restaurant is the latest Russian joint in town. Downstairs is designer-y with white walls, high-backed banquettes in regal purple, stylish carafes and glasses for the two score and more flavoured vodkas. Food's good in parts: starters such as pod shuboy (herring with beetroot), Russian salad and smoked fish star. Main courses start at £7.50 for pelmeni, to £18 for sturgeon with asparagus (£25 with red and black caviar). Great puddings. Bar lunches for £6.50.

Rasputin, 265 High Street, London W3 (020-8993 5802). Daily dinner. This rich-red restaurant and wine bar looks dated but not depressing. The atmosphere is chipper. Meals start promisingly with prettily arranged pickled veg - cuke, cabbage, peppers, green tomatoes, and blinis. Borscht, pirogi, blinis with smoked salmon are satisfying starters. Lamb shashlik and venison join beef stroganoff as mains, accompanied by less convincing vegetables. For pudding, Charlotka is a mousse surrounded by sponge fingers. Put away two courses for no more than £15, plus whatever you spend on 20 types of vodka.

Soviet Canteen, 430 King's Road, London SW10 (020-7795 1556). Mon-Sat dinner. Exceptionally cheerful of its sort - even though it's in a basement. A black-and-white tiled floor, bare tables and linen napkins augur well for zesty, purposeful cooking making modern use of Russian traditions and ingredients. A short menu is another point in its favour. Zakuski - mostly fishy hors d'oeuvres with rye bread - and starters such as grav-adlax or Russian salad get things off to a lively start. Georgian pheasant with orange, grape and walnut sauce (£10.95) or trout with sorrel sauce and vegetables keep up the good work. Pick the prix fixe menu and two courses will cost you just £9.95. Recommended.

St Petersburg, 7A York Street, Liverpool (0151-709 6676). Tue-Sat dinner. If there's a dish in the canon of Russian cuisine that's not on the menu here I'd be surprised. The menu's an epic: from borscht at £3.95 to beef stroganoff at £13.95. 2.5g black Russian caviar with a boiled egg is £4.50; pelmeni dumplings come in various forms. Banana split or St Petersburg, a meringue-and-biscuit gateau for afters. The owner and chef are from St Petersburg; set in an old warehouse in the where-the-action-is Rope Walk area. £20 without drinks; wines from £9.95 for a bottle from Moldova. Look it up on st-petersburg.virtualave.net.

Café Cossachok, 10 King Street, Glasgow (0141-553 0733). Tue-Sat 10.30am-10.30pm, Sun 4pm-10.30pm. Live music from Slavic performers every Sunday, a gallery upstairs, reasonably priced food, and long opening hours (drinks are served until midnight) - a thriving hotbed of Russian culture in the Merchant City. It's the first and only place of its sort in Scotland. The menu's short enough to inspire confidence in the freshness and prices are a steal. Beef stroganoff tops the price list at £9.25, salmon Baikal has an orange sauce, and there's vegetarian musaka, blintzes and