Russian gastro shop and cafe-style restaurant. The caviar is delicious and the champagne of the very highest calibre. However, as you might expect in the heart of Piccadilly, the prices are extortionate. This is a great spot for impressing a date if you have a deep wallet. Otherwise, try a Polish or even a chinese deli for good caviar. The word caviar entered English from Turkish, but there are various purported etymologies of the word. While some claim that it was the Turkish who first generated the word khavyar, some say it derives from the Persian word ??????? (Xâg-âvar), meaning "the roe-generator"; others say chav-jar, which means "cake of power", a reference to the ancient Persian practice of eating caviar in stick form as a kind of elixir.

In Persian, the word refers to both the sturgeon and its roe; in Russian, the word ???? (ikra), "roe", is used. The Russian word "malossol" ("little salt") sometimes appears on caviar tins to show that the caviar is minimally salted; typically, caviar is 4% to 8% salt, with the better-brand varieties generally being less salted. Contemporary black caviar is roe from sturgeon fished from the Caspian Sea by Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Kazakhstan. The highest prices paid are for the Beluga, Ossetra, and Sevruga varieties. (The large-grained Beluga caviar is from the Beluga sturgeon, a fish which is unrelated to the Beluga whale, a mammal.) The golden Sterlet caviar was once a favorite of czars, shahs, and emperors. Currently, the dwindling fishing yields consequent to overfishing and pollution have resulted in the creation of less costly, though popular, caviar-quality roe alternatives from the whitefish and the North Atlantic salmon.