Za Kryshey

"Over the Roof" is tucked away on the grounds of Rassvet, and the walk to get there sets the right rhythm from the start. You have to cross the courtyard of a former factory, find the right entrance, climb the stairs and take the elevator up to the third floor. Then a space unfolds, designed by the Italian bureau B-arch: ochre walls, large windows, soft light, vintage furniture, candles and plenty of greenery. The interior has armchairs and sofas in an Italian lounge aesthetic, lava-stone tables and handmade ceramics. Instead of the usual Moscow formality, there's a warmer, livelier atmosphere here.

Our restaurant guide's team finds this an almost secret spot that doesn't try to advertise itself — and that's exactly why it grabs the Moscow crowd even harder.

The project is run by Vladimir Basov and brand chef Marat Kalaidzhyan. The restaurant stands on three pillars: the kitchen, the wine, and a large garden terrace. The menu is short, with some items added by hand, which comes across as an honest working rhythm rather than a decorative gesture. The base here is Mediterranean, with clear pairings and seasonal ingredients. Instead of an endless list of crowd-pleasing hits, they keep a compact menu, which makes it easier to hold quality and swap dishes with the season in time.

The menu is split into crudo and raw dishes, appetizers and vegetables, dough, pasta and mains, dishes for the table, and desserts. Among the standout items that keep coming up in guest recommendations are the beef tartare with fries, pancakes with trout and pike roe, hand pies with various fish and tartar sauce, and octopus carpaccio with young zucchini. The seasonal sections have featured a green-pea tartlet, asparagus with morels and chèvre cheese, and later broccoli. That approach matters for the whole restaurant: the kitchen doesn't cling to the same list year-round, but moves along with the produce.

The wine list here isn't an afterthought to the kitchen. For Basov, dinner is built around the wine just as naturally as around the plate. The selection includes farm producers from Austria, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy and France, alongside a large Burgundy section spanning the classics to more free-form interpretations. Some wines are poured by the glass, so an evening can easily be built not around one bottle but around several pairings over the course of dinner.

The terrace makes this place especially striking in summer, with wooden furniture, striped upholstery, throws and plenty of greenery. From up here, the former industrial site no longer reads as a factory yard but as a city garden. That's why the restaurant tends to read as an evening spot rather than a daytime one — which lines up with an observation from our reviews: breakfast doesn't give the full picture of the project, while dinner shows off the kitchen, the wine program and the atmosphere all at once.

Our secret guests gave the dinner 8 out of 10 — for the precise work with seasonal ingredients, a strong wine list, and a feeling, rare for Moscow, that this place runs on its own script rather than a common city template.