One of the city’s loveliest baroque exteriors, the salmon-pink Stroganov Palace was designed by court favourite Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1753 for one of the city’s leading aristocratic families. The building has been superbly restored by the Russian Museum, and you can visit the impressive state rooms upstairs, where the Grand Dining Room, the Mineralogical Study and the Rastrelli Hall, with its vast frieze ceiling, are the obvious highlights.
Famously, the Stroganov’s chef created here a beef dish served in a sour cream and mushroom sauce that became known to the world as ‘beef stroganoff’.