Tsar Treatment

Moscow’s new oligarch-friendly Ritz-Carlton

July 2, 2007—Moscow these days isn't exactly known for tasteful restraint. Happily, the new 334-room Ritz-Carlton Moscow continues that tradition. Set just off Red Square, the $350 million hotel is loaded with imperialist touches: the city’s largest and most expensive rooms (rates start at about $1,000 a night), Portuguese marble baths—not to mention a 21,000 square-foot spa—and a lobby bar with nearly 2,000 antiques and its own vodka sommelier. All in all, it’s a step up from the Soviet-era Hotel Intourist, which was razed to make way for the new property.

And there’s more. A new restaurant, Jeroboam (“Magnum” was evidently too working class) will feature cuisine from Austrian superstar Heinz Winkler, who intends to keep the menu distinctly Russian. To wit: Siberian crayfish with saffron, potato mousseline, and—for all you budding oligarchs—the Tsar’s Breakfast, which includes a Kobe steak, a truffle omelet, and foie gras au torchon with caramelized apple and pain brioche, not to mention 56 grams of Beluga caviar and a bottle of Cristal. “The superwealthy today want the best in the world,” explains Winkler. And in today’s Russia, what the superwealthy want, the superwealthy get.

Ritz-Carlton Moscow, Tverskaya Street 3-5; 011-7 495 225 8888, www.ritzcarlton.com