White Rabbit

White Rabbit is a Russian restaurant under a glass dome on the top floor of the Smolensky Passage building on Smolenskaya Square in Moscow.

The restaurateur Boris Zarkov opened it in 2011 together with Alexander Zaturinsky, and it became the flagship of his group, the White Rabbit Family. Chef Vladimir Mukhin took over the kitchen in 2012. He comes from a family of cooks, as his father and grandfather were chefs, started out in his father's restaurant, and later worked as a sous chef for Christian Étienne in France. Under him the restaurant settled on modern Russian cooking based on seasonal local produce.

Mukhin travels around Russia in search of ingredients and brings back Crimean truffles, rapana sea snails from Yalta, chestnut honey, pickled bamboo and even moose milk, which then shape each season's tasting menu. Plants lead most dishes, with poultry, beef and seafood beside them; he sums up the style as the rabbit's food rather than the rabbit. One experiment turned the stem of the Brussels sprout plant into a dish that imitates marrowbone. A laboratory in the same building, WR Lab, opened later for testing new dishes and menus.

Through the dome the room has views over the city in every direction. The interior follows Alice in Wonderland, with paintings of rabbits, rococo furniture and deep sofas, and even the elevator carries the theme. A gastrobar on a lower floor staged the first dinner shows in Russia built around a menu, among them one based on Lewis Carroll's book. From the middle of the 2010s White Rabbit returned year after year on The World's 50 Best Restaurants.