ZIMA

When one finds himself in London and decides to take a break from the traditional recommendations and seeks some Russian food, Zima comes to mind.
They have the staples of a Russian restaurant from olivie salad to herring under fur :) to okroshka, to pelmenj.
Frankly, the food is decent, it's not like wow, Babuska good but like, my aunt Nina from 45 kilometers outside Moscow decent.
Ambiance is good, drinks are tasty and it's nice spot to have a decent dinner with family or friends.

Bit of a mixed bag. Portion sizes go from reasonable( confit duck leg special) to tiny(chicken pancakes). Quality is OK. Decor is not as impressive or interesting as , say Mari Vanna. Staff are friendly but a bit haphazard; it wasn't obvious why one was wearing an outside coat while serving, for instance. I'm really not sure who was smoking what to come up with the idea of the attached ( and deeply un-Russian) shisha bar.

Russian cuisine with a modern twist. Great presentation. Excellent taste. My personal favourite was the borscht soup and the pan-fried sturgeon. Love how they added royal Siberian caviar to the buttery sauce.

The food was delicious but way too small for the amount you pay. I ordered the fish set lunch menu for 15 pounds. I gotta say, this was very very expensive for the portion size. Therefore I am disappointing. I left still hungry. They could have easily added a few extra perogies. The service was quite poor. They ignore you and my particular server forgot to put in my order and other customers who came after me got their food before me.

Mop Soho is changing and a lot of old favourites have disappeared. But it's not all bad as exciting new places keep popping up. While reminiscing about old media haunts a friend and came across Zima and were instantly intrigued. Russian food, and not any old Russian food but street food!?

I doubt that you will be served dumplings on the streets of Moscow but Zima certainly succeeds in adding a modern twist to traditional home cooking. The choice of actual Russian dishes is quite limited though - grateful to be prevented from ordering my first choice of main course as duck confit is not Russian after all (nor street I'd guess).

OK, so street food is code for tapas sized portions. Perfect excuse to follow our dumplings and beef stroganoff with desert. We opted for more dumplings and pavlova. The latter again stretching the definition of Russian food but delicious nonetheless.

As this was a mid-week lunch we kept it dry and stuck to soft drinks. Extra points to Zima for including home made juices and lemonades on the drinks menu! I can imagine the place buzzing in the evenings, not sure I'd rush back though as I've exhausted the extent of actual culinary discovery.

Ordered bunch of stuff from here through Uber Eats (soup, kotlety, pierozhki, honey cake, and syrniki). Everything was so good and (rather surprising) fresh. A little pricey, but I was craving authentic Russian food.

We had dinner at Zima last Sunday . Luckily we were able to find a table on the terrasse . Our waitress was very nice , helpful and smiley .
The stroganoff was excellent , my only complain is that the portions are too small .
We will be back .

Came here for Valentine's Day Friday!!! :))) And one time before last year too actually for a eastern european club dinner :)

This time I tried the beef stroganoff dish, which was really rich and filling and really delicious!! I think if I come back I'll get this one again it was so good :) And we also shared some dishes like the uha soup, black pelmeni with fish, herring under a fur coat (this was one of my favorites!), and syrniki for dessert :)

Ambience and decor is fine, they have some recognizable cool nostalgic Russian songs playing! Waiters were nice enough as well, though it took quite a while for some of the dishes to arrive for some reason and they might've forgotten our drinks at first.

Zima is housed in a lovely townhouse in Soho, specialising in Russian food. We had an excellent evening there and the staff let us stay until midnight, politely nudging us out the door without any fuss!

The food won't blow your socks off but it was fun to try something different. We tried the Zima platter to get a taste of a variety things. I particularly liked the marinated feta cheese and beetroot cured salmon. We also ordered the Draniki potato pancakes which were very slightly underdone and underseasoned. The Vareniki veggie dumplings were a bit on the bland side too. Unfortunately, the food wasn't the most memorable part of the meal.

That said, our waitress, Anna, was a total gem. She was friendly and attentive. She talked us through the menu, made some suggestions and kept our wine and water glasses topped up at all times. She also helped us through several rounds of vodka at the end of the meal, chatting us through the different infusions (and also pointing out that Russians don't drink vodka this way - they usually down them plain!) Zima, please give Anna a raise! She was fabulous!

We had a fab evening at Zima. It's cosy, fun, different and low key!

A real pleasant surprise!
Good food. Excellent and friendly service. Great ambiance.

Came back twice for good food, excellent service and hospitality.

Try the terrace when the weather is good.