Bar "Medved" Returns to Bolshaya Konyushennaya.

Bar "Medved" ("Bear") has reopened in St. Petersburg — this time as a permanent venue. It's located inside restaurant Goose Goose and occupies 100 square meters. The spirit and interior of the bar that operated at this same address from 1906 until the revolution have been recreated here. It was the first place in the country to have a bar counter, and with it, cocktail culture. Back then the venue was called "American style": residents tried alcoholic drinks with ice and experimental flavor combinations for the first time.

Bar "Medved" was part of a large restaurant opened in 1878 by restaurateur Ernest Igel. The name survived even a century later. To make the reconstruction as accurate as possible, the Goose Goose team studied archival documents and photographs from the State Archive of St. Petersburg. They found inventory ledgers, newspaper notes, menu information, and even an account of one of writer Alexander Kuprin's brawls at this bar. The journal "Petropol," one of the most respected sources on the history of St. Petersburg's urban culture, provided genuine interior objects that belonged to the original venue — from tableware to a menu dated January 14, 1900.

Historical artifacts can be seen in the new "Medved's" dining room. Among them: silver Christofle flatware, postcards, dish cards, and a reprint of restaurateur Igel's menu. The furniture, lighting, and décor are kept in the style of the early 20th century. To create the full atmosphere, a closed room and a long bar counter were set up — the kind that were fashionable before the revolution.

The project's head bartender is Pavel Shitov. In the cocktail list, he's gathered recipes from three eras: the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The menu is divided into chapters and titled "Three Centuries of Cocktail Culture." Every cocktail can be tried in different versions, to see how tastes and techniques have changed over a hundred years. The list includes a rhubarb-and-nettle spritz, a white Americano with sage and duchess pear, a St. Petersburg punch, a barberry sazerac, and an unusual buckwheat-parmesan margarita.

It's not just the cocktails that reference the past — the kitchen does too. Goose Goose chef Ilya Ten has prepared a menu inspired by culinary themes from the Russian classics. It includes Olivier salad with tongue, quail with egg, a trout pie in rich pastry, crab dumplings, rasstegai with oxtail, and tartines with lard and sprats. All the dishes are interpretations of the golden gastronomy of the 19th century.

"Medved" as a pop-up once became an event on St. Petersburg's bar scene. Back then it was a temporary story, but now the bar is returning as a permanent place. What's on offer here isn't just drinks and food, but full immersion in the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. It's a point on the map where cocktails became part of the city's history, and now that history is alive again.