“Is there fast food over there?” must be the most recurrent questions I received from my friends after they hear that I am studying Russian is Russia (go figure) during these most “interesting” times. It is a fun little question to say the least, and one I felt like replying with an extensive article. There most certainly is “still” “American” fast food in the Russian Federation and due to a plethora of different reasons (ranging from politics to law, and economics to social dynamics) they are not going anywhere anytime soon. Let us dive deep into the world of fast food in the Russian Federation in late 2022, to see which are worth a visit and which you should avoid like the plague.
Vkusno i Tochka
If you have not heard about Vkusno i Tochka lately I would be genuinely surprised. It was a pretty “big deal” as a propaganda tool for both sides of the Ukrainian conflict after McDonalds decided to leave the Russian market and a Russian clone of it spawned seemingly out of nowhere in merely a few days. That is, of course, Vkusno i Tochka. The name roughly translates to “Tasty and Period!” though there are many different variations available. Suffice to say that it is meant to have a bold stance on its tastiness, and how it cannot be even questioned. We’ll let us see if that is the case or not…
McDonalds’s, I mean, Vkusno i Tochka’s menu revolves around burgers as is expected. Unfortunately, they are not the best when it comes to cooking them… Patties are almost always dry, and the bread is not the freshest. Veggies are always quite plumb and juicy, and they are not afraid to use a lot of sauce, so all is not lost but for enthusiasts of a more burger-like burger, I am afraid Vkusno i Tochka may not be able to cut it. This is not to say that it is terrible, but for the same price or perhaps a bit more you can find some seriously delicious burgers all around Russia, so rather than them being tasteless I would say that the real problem is it is pointless to have a burger here rather than going for a decent shawarma at half price, or a huge “Siberian” burger with a little mark-up that actually has a juicy patty and a ton of cheese.
Though almost any American fast-food chain has their burgers, frankly not all are known for their burger-like products. McDonalds back in Turkey for example often was praised for its superior fries, as well as a decent selection of sauces. I am happy to report that this is somewhat true for the case of Vkusno i Tochka as well. Though I am not a big fan of their burgers, their chicken products and fries are almost always on point. Fries are not salted too much, and offer a good crisp. Chicken tenders are juicier than some KFC I had elsewhere, and nuggets come with their own unique but much appreciated spice mix. They also have wings and drumsticks, which I genuinely liked on part with the actual KFC chicken they have here in Russia right now.
When it comes to sauces, there is not much to talk about there. Russia is known for its not so amicable stance on fast-food, alongside with some other countries like Hungary. This means that sauces are extra, and taxed heavily… I have not seen many buying them when I was there a few times, though I splurged just for this article to see if they differ at all. The answer is an obvious no, given how Heinz still produces them, likely for some Central Asian McDonalds, and then those products are shipped here, kindly “re-decorated” to get rid of the McDonalds logo, and then sold at a mark-up. They all taste fantastic, well the ones I tried anyways, but obviously the garlic sauce still reigns supreme.
Burger King
While McDonalds did not wait around to leave the Russian market, same could hardly be said for the case of Burger King. Though they did intend to leave, at least on paper, there seems to be a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that keeps them tied to Russia at the moment, which is why you can find plenty of Burger Kings all around the country. To me, it seemed like an overall cheaper but not necessarily better alternative to Vkusno i Tochka. I would genuinely visit them both every now and then, but I sure would not make a habit of eating at them regularly.
Russian Burger King offers quite a lot of burgers to choose from, and though their beef patties are also quite dry, they are nonetheless better than the even drier chicken options. Other than the patty itself, rest of the ingredients here were often fresher and even more present than their Vkusno i Tochka counterparts which is quite welcome. It was quite bizarre to get a four cheese burger only to realize that they put all four cheeses in random parts of the burger but that is likely an error on part of the current employee rather than a decision made by the franchisee. Though they are decent overall, I would still stick to smaller venues specializing on burgers to get my burger fix rather than spend a decent amount of cash on mediocre burgers on these franchises.
That being said, much like Vkusno i Tochka’s decent chicken products, there is one thing that really can get me to keep going back to the Russian Burger King every now and then, and that is their King Fries. Imagine fresh and crispy fries, topped with a tangy BBQ sauce, a rather sharp cheddar sauce, some pieces of bacon, and most importantly, a ton of fried onions! It sure is a bit over the top and I am pretty sure having it regularly could shave off a few years out of my lifespan but I still find myself eating it at least once a month, so it really is that good.
KFC
Some people prefer burgers, some fried chicken. I am prone to say that I belong to the latter group. Even in a burger place, often times I end up ordering a chicken burger if I heard good comments about their crispy and juicy patties. Perhaps due to that personal preference of mine, I must say that KFC in Russia is simply the best option out of all other known international brands that currently operate in the country, with surprisingly cheap and tasty fried chicken. Though their original recipe drumsticks are a bit too dry for me, hot wings were always on point no matter when I ate them. Juicy, tasty, spicy (for Russian standards at least) and quite affordable. A wonderful combination if you ask me, especially coming from a country where KFC is a bit more “luxurious” than most other fast-food brands in its category.
Akin to Burger King’s King Fries, KFC offers its own “special” fries. They have a “unique KFC sauce” that sure tasted a lot like garlic aioli to me, and some fried onion on top. Tasty, but not as good as the one Burger King offers.
Though overall I enjoyed all my dining experiences at KFC, I must say that their nuggets were never good at any point. Even Vkusno i Tochka seems to have an edge in that regard, and heck, I believe Burger King’s nuggets were not much worse as well. Of course, the actual chicken itself, such as the wings in the photo are quite succulent indeed.
Last but not least, a few words about the burgers that offered at the Russian KFC. They are nothing special, though they keep trying to introduce some new flavours into the batch, such as this Chicken Curry burger. They are okay, but the best part is that the original chicken burger costs around a USD, so if you are in a rush you can always just grab two of those and have a very cheap meal in the city centre and as such critisising the quality of the products too much is kind of a snobby endeavour. Overall, they taste fine, but of course bone in chicken tastes better.
Papa Johns
Ah yes, Papa Johns… It is difficult to explain just how happy I was to see that I could still have buttery garlic sauce fix, and boy oh boy it is impossible to tell how good it felt to see that the one decent joint they had in the whole city was merely a 10 minutes away from my home. Should I ahead and also add that they had a very long running “get two pizzas for the price of one” promotion on Tuesdays? Sure, Papa Johns is not really cheap per se, and even with the discount it costed more than most meals in town at around 350 roubles per cheesy and doughy goodness, but it would be a lie to say that it is not worth it… Think of a good fast-food style pizza, Papa Johns in Nizhny has it all. The service is quite fast, cheese is cheesy and plenty, toppings are adequate, though the crust was wider than I prefer it made up for that in its taste department, as I could just eat the crusts alone and still be happy about it.
Of course, when one is talking about Papa it is hard to not mention the garlic sauce, which is what you use to make those crusts even more enjoyable. Though the sanctions seem to have affected these (I seem to remember much bigger/original packets of them back in St. Petersburg a few years back) they have not lost much taste-wise. As always, it was certainly not enough to cover all the crust but it did its job well enough. For some reason there is an ungodly amount of pies to pick from at Papa Johns Russia so it is a decent place to go back to every once in a while. That being said, it also suffers from what most pizza spots in Russia suffer from, difficult in access to affordable and decent tomatoes or tomato sauces. Do not expect the sauce to be of the highest quality, but everything else should satisfy your pizza craving.
Subway
I was extremely surprised when I found out that there is a small Subway in a huge Metro hypermarket nestled somewhere in the outskirts of the city centre in Nizhny Novgorod. It is quite literally hidden from the sight, and there was no one there whenever I visited it. Later on, I realized that it was not the only joint in the city at all. There is at least one more spot in the mall named Sedmoye Nebo and possibly more. Regardless, Subway here has a lot of unique products that I have never seen in any other branches in other parts of the world that I have been to, such as open top and toasted delicacies, hotdogs, some interesting desserts etc. I wanted to go with some classics and got myself a Subway Melt as well as a spicy Italian B.M.T. sandwich.
Both sandwiches were great, nothing was out of the ordinary, and customer service was top notch. Though this photo does a poor job of showing it, every item I asked for was given generously, and sauces were spread around evenly. They also helped us out with some translations and were overall extremely friendly. Bread was fresh, all ingredients were even fresher, so I honestly cannot see any reason that would keep me away from returning here.
In short, there really is not a lack of fast food in Russia at the moment, no matter where some of these internationals brands may have originated in at one time. Legally speaking, it is difficult to explain the grey zone in which some of these joints are today, but the crux of the matter is that they are here. Some are good, some are mediocre, but to be honest no one is terrible. They have some redeeming qualities even if they may perform quite poorly in many regards. Papa Johns and Subway are the ones that I find myself going back to more frequently, as Subway turned out to be like just any others Subway, but perhaps a bit better due to its generous servers. Papa Johns is Papa Johns, it has the garlic sauce so yeah I will keep going back to it as long as they keep giving a packet of that goodness with all their pizzas. Last but not least, despite all its shortcoming KFC is more or less the only place to have fried chicken in town, given that it is Russia after all, so in hindsight it is likely the one that I frequent the most, and its cheap prices and decent coupons sure impacts that decision a lot too!