Gluten Free in Russia – A Bit Stressful but Doable

We recently traveled to Russia for the World Cup (stopping in Norway and Finland on the way), specifically St. Petersburg and Moscow. It isn’t easy to find GF food, but it is doable! I liken it to finding GF food in the US five to ten years ago. Take our tips below and good luck!

Key survival items:
- Card explaining celiac in Russian! (We used this one.)
- Google Translate app (you can hold it up to food labels!)
- Find Me Gluten Free app
- Look for this on labels: без клейковины

Gluten Free Specialty Store – an essential stop! Bread, cookies, candy – they didn’t speak English, but everything in the store was GF so we just pointed at what we wanted. It’s also helpful to see the GF brands in person, so you can pick them out at the regular grocery stores (we like NutriFree for bread).

Tough to find, but worth it!

A bit dry, but good

GF Kitkat!

These are SO good!

St Petersburg Restaurants:

Farm Benois – this is THE place to go – the menu is clearly marked and we had gluten free DUMPLINGS, bread, pizza, and spaghetti (we found this late in the trip and were quite excited). It’s worth a taxi ride there (Uber was cheap and convenient)!

Dumplings, Pasta, Bread – Yum

PIzza!

Farm Benois!

Menu with clear labels!

Lovely Restaurant!

Cool Decor

Tandoor – the curries are gluten free – we loved the Butter Chicken and saffron rice! It’s also right off Nevsky Ave – we ate here 3 days in a row since it was safe and convenient.
Parklane Resort Restaurant – we showed our cards and they came up with options!
Il Lago de Cigni – we showed our Russian celiac restaurant card and the waiter understood.