FireBird Russian Restaurant (CLOSED)

Step off 46th Street into the grandeur of Pre-Revolutionary Russia at this three-story townhouse restaurant, which displays Tsarist chinaware, period costumes and a library of 18th-century Russian literature. In keeping with the museum-like setting is traditional elegant Russian fare, like buckwheat blini accompanied by cream and caviar (more than a dozen kinds are available) or pickled herring topped with sour cherries. Chicken Kiev is passionately traditional, while sturgeon heavily bathed in a Champagne nage and Bananas Foster flambéed tableside by a white-jacketed server is a history lesson on the French influence over Russian cuisine. The food at Firebird doesn’t break any new ground, but that’s not its aim; instead it proudly showcases the culinary traditions of a sumptuous bygone era.