Partying Russian-style with St. Petersburg Nights

I'm out at St. Petersburg Nights, a Russian restaurant and lounge that says it's the Bay area's one and only, on a Saturday evening. It's 8 p.m., and the restaurant's weekly party, called Russian Nights, a polycephalic celebration of international culture, cuisine and entertainment, is about to begin.

The restaurant — a bulky, black, angular thing out on St. Pete Beach, with an awning that juts out over the sidewalk along Sunset Way like a dusty old pill box hat half swallowed by sand, and long left to vanish between the great, glowing blocks of pink condominiums overlooking Upham and Lido beaches — seems more suited to revolve around a ring of Madame Sosostris’ tarot cards than it does Eastern European food. Nevertheless, things like house-made Ukrainian pierogies, Siberian pelmeni, Georgian kharcho and dozens of imported vodkas are on its menu, so I’m jazzed.

We walk in, past ads with fleshy pictures for burlesque shows, belly-dancing nights and a Chippendales performance, all of which are taped, facing out, to the darkly tinted front doors. Inside is what seems like a secretary-less front desk of some old hotel whose decision makers imagined repainted children’s haunted Halloween houses as their structural foundation. Eventually we reach a young, shaggy-haired bartender manning a bar that’s sectioned off from the dining room, stage and dance floor, who says we can have a seat anywhere we’d like.

We’re the sixth and final table to arrive for dinner and the show. A guitarist, dressed similar to a flamboyant Van Helsing, is sitting center stage, by himself, flicking the strings of an electric guitar, bending and manipulating them into these tranquil yet vibrant pieces of classical music. Behind us are a couple of industrial fans set atop restaurant chairs, churning and facing the stage and the six seated tables around it. Next to the fans are a group of fake plants, blocking off what could be the second entrance to the dining room.

I start off with a Baltika #5 Gold, a big-bottled “Euro pale lager,” brewed in St. Petersburg, Russia. My date, my fiancé, has a pinot grigio. Our waitress is a tall blond woman named Edita. “I am from Lithuania, but I serve Russian food,” she says with an accent and laughs at herself as she heads off with our drink order. When she comes back, she brings us bread with a sautéed onion spread. It’s potent and straightforward, and comes just as the first round of dancing begins.

Two cute women, one blond and one brunette, come out from behind a black curtain that’s positioned off to the side of the stage, where Van Helsing is strumming along to the recording that the girls are dancing to. They have some very professional and energetic smiles plastered to their faces, and are wearing decadent, traditional Russian folk dresses as they dance traditional Russian folk numbers to a somewhat modern Russian pop song. Everyone in the restaurant becomes immediately cheerful.

We start with the salad trio, a sample of three classic Russian salads: Russian potato, made with turkey and peas, in addition to the potatoes; beet carrot, which is pickled, purple and just what I need; and cosmopolitan, with shredded apples, cucumbers, a hint of honey and light mayo. Even though it’s summer in Florida and still hot as hell in the dead of night, we order a bowl of Ukrainian borscht too, a hearty beef soup with cabbage, beets, and an assortment of other vegetables, served with a side of sour cream. Nothing is left by the time Edita comes back to check on us, so we order some pierogies and shots of Russian Standard vodka.

A ring of four people are holding hands and dancing in a circle up on stage at this point. The dancers have enticed two men to join them on the dance floor. One of the men is young and doing a good job of impressing his Russian-speaking date, who’s able to sing along perfectly with the words to the song playing from the speakers. The other man is much older and barely lifts his feet off the ground when he dances. But he’s having fun and keeping his heart rate steady. They’re all applauded once the number is over, and the men return as heroes to their tables.

The vodka comes first and goes down as smooth as any shot of mine ever has. The pierogies arrive next, crisply sautéed and served with sides of applesauce and sour cream. We make sure to get in an order of chicken shish kabobs before our waitress leaves. We comment, once again, on how fluidly and effortlessly Van Helsing can jam.

Neither dancer loses any enthusiasm while performing the next two numbers. The first of which is a type of Hungarian gypsy dance with plenty of spinning and twirling to show off the colorfully shiny, flowing garb they’re wearing. And the other is a 1920s-esque flapper routine, accompanied by short-brimmed black bowler hats, red dresses, stockings and Charlie Chaplin canes.

Once the pierogies are finished and the kabobs arrive, I’m feeling loose and entertained. My fiancé agrees, and we order another round of the Russian Standard for after our kabobs, which come on sticks and are marinated in white wine and spices before being tossed to cook on a charcoal grill. We finish them just as the vodka comes out and the last performance begins — belly dancing.

The booze goes down to the sharp twang of brass finger cymbals and gyrating hips. Both dancers move freely around the dance floor, chiming in unison when appropriate, always smiling and contorting their torsos into positions that allow their asses to shake liberally and triumphantly. Everyone in attendance seems thoroughly titillated. As the two women finish, they make their rounds for tips, hitting up each table with an outstretched arm, holding overturned bowler hats for us to drop fluttering bills into. They make sure to take the time to speak to each table, if not each person, individually, and make direct eye contact — their eyelids, decorated with long fake eyelashes, are dark and shimmer with heavy makeup.

Jillian, I find out once we’re hit up for our tips, is the blond dancer’s name. She’s bubbly and confident. “How’d you two like the show?” she asks us. “It was fantastic, Jillian,” I say as I drop a worn ten-spot into the upturned bowler. “Thank you!” she says, and I go on: “How many nights a week are you performing here?” “Three,” she says. “We’re only opened Thursday through Sunday, with the shows being every night but Sunday. If you liked tonight though, you should come back for the belly dancing night, it’s much bigger.” She’s still dancing as she talks to us and makes sure to plug her dance studio, Hip Expressions, before she leaves.

We order blintzes with apples, strawberries and whipped cream for dessert and can barely finish them. We’re stuffed, but the blintzes and fruit are so nice and fresh that we slog through them anyway.

Before we head out, I order a coffee and get the guitarists real name, and toss a five in his bucket. “Daryal,” he says but his card just says, “KAFKASSO,” in some red, gothic font. There’s a picture of Kafkasso on the front, holding his guitar like a badly scorned lover, looking down, with long, wet tendrils of black hair in his face. He’s Turkish, he tells me, standing up at the bar, talking to the two dancers and I, while my fiancé uses a new plastic mouthpiece that came wrapped in cellophane to share a hookah that’s been making its way around the bar.

As we head home, I can’t help but notice how much of the food and entertainment at Russian Nights actually came from places other than Russia, like Georgia and the Ukraine, and not to mention the Spanish guitar by Van Helsing and the American flapper routine by the dancers. Yet, St. Petersburg Nights says it maintains its status as the region's only Russian restaurant and lounge. Putin would be proud. And I’ll be back.

This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2014.