Donon Restaurant

Categories / City Services/Restaurants, Cafes, Cafeterias
DONON. A restaurant opened in 1849 by the entrepreneur Zh.B. Donon at 24 Moika River Embankment, in the building of the former Saint George Restaurant and Cafe, which existed from the early 1840s. Donon was one of St. Petersburg's most fashionable restaurants and was renowned for its exquisite cuisine, Romanian orchestra and first-class service (all waiters were Tatars, united in a cartel). Writers, actors, painters and scientists gathered at the Donon (among its regular customers were I.S. Turgenev and N.I. Kostomarov). At Donon, a garden was designed that was mentioned by M.E. Saltykov-Schedrin in his Provincial Sketches. In the 1890s, the St. Petersburg literati established the so-called Donon's Saturdays (a special "Diners' Album" was arranged, in which various impromptu stories and caricatures were set down). In 1910, the new owner of Donon, M.K. Sementovsky-Kurilo, moved the restaurant to 36 Angliiskaya Embankment (the corner of Blagoveschenskaya Square, today 2 Truda Square), and in 1911 renamed it Old Donon. In 1914, the restaurant was closed down. From 1910, the restaurant that remained on the Moika River Embankment was named Donon, Betan and Tatars (the Tatar cartel refused to move to the restaurant to the Angliiskaya Embankment). After October 1917 it was closed down, reopened in the early 1920s, but shortly afterwards ceased to exist.

Reference: Ковалевский В. Душа деянием жива. СПб., 1999. С. 98-103.

I. A. Bogdanov. Donon Zh.B.
Kostomarov Nikolay Ivanovich
Saltykov-Shchedrin (real name Saltykov) Mikhail Evgrafovich
Sementovsky-Kurilo M.K.
Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich
Angliiskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 36
Moika River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 24
Ковалевский В. Душа деянием жива. СПб., 1999