rench culinary finesse needs no introduction, and no proper modern urban setting can assert its cultural and social worth without establishments of haute cuisine. After the closure of the famous restaurant Cape of Good Hope (Mys dobroi nadezhdy) in the 1850s, a dokhodny dom stood on the spot. Subsequently,the French restauraunteur Borel acquired the building and deemed it the Restaurant de Paris. When renowned chef J.P. Cubat took over in 1886, the restaurant’s popularity soared.

Kiuba (in Russia: Кюба) opened in 1887 in the building where Petersburg's first Café de Paris used to be located. One of Petersburg's first electric advertisements – glowing letters spelling "Cubat" – was constructed on the roof of the building. The restaurant attracted many a member of Petersburg’s cultural elite and became a veritable “institution” of the good life in the Russian capital until around 1917, when social and cultural upheaval led to its close.

Johannes Von Günter, who was an acolyte of Viacheslav Ivanov and frequent attendee of Ivanov's "Tower" salons, noted in his memoirs that the inaugural ceremonies for the newly-minted literary journal "Apollon" took place chez Cubat in 1906. Click here to read the excerpt from Von Günter’s journal in Russian as well as an original French passage from Gaston Leroux's Rouletabille chez le Tsar, in which Kiuba is mentioned.