Belgrade | Afternoon Tea at the Café Moskva

We went for a walk along the Kneza Mihaila, also known as the Prince Michael Street which leads us to a junction where the stately Hotel Moskva is. The Hotel Moskva is the equivalent of our Raffles Hotel or Bangkok’s Oriental Hotel. In its heydays, the hotel hosted figures like Indira Gandhi, Richard Nixon, Luciano Pavarotti, Orson Welles, Jean-Paul Sartre, Robert de Niro and Albert Einstein.

The hotel is most famous for a particular cake known as the Moskva šnit, a kind of fruit cake made with almonds, sour cherries and pineapple created by Anica Džepina.

We decided to have afternoon tea at the Café Moskva in the hotel, curious about the Moskva šnit and also wanted to take in the atmosphere within the historic hotel. It has lost a bit of that old world grandeur ever since nationalization and re-privatisation (as well as renovations) over the years. Quite like the Grand Budapest Hotel in its modern years in the Wes Anderson film. However a certain charm still remains.

The café has a nice mix of people. Local aunties mingling at one corner, businessmen have exclusive meetings at one corner as well as the curious tourists like us. We took time, to people watch, on the street and in the grand hall of the Café Moskva, while also looking out for little details around the space.

And then we had the Moskva šnit (480 SGD : 6 SGD) which was actually really good. It is somewhat like a mix of ice cream, with delicate nutty flavours from the almonds and a tangy fruity mix from the sour cherries and pineapple to balance the sweetness and richness from the almonds. This is something I would miss from this trip. While Café Moskva might be the place of origin and famous for the Moskva šnit, you could also find it at other patisseries also known as poslastičarnica. We spotted it in Kotor in Montenegro as well.

My friend decided to have some macarons out of curiosity and we shared a pot of Earl Grey Imperial (290 Serbian Dinars : 4 SGD), a black tea which is a combination of Ceylon Ruhunablack Tea, bergamot oil and jasmine flowers which was really fragrant and soothing. 

If you are in Belgrade, with time and money to spare, 

I think the Cafe Moskva is a nice place to drop by and chill.

Cafe Moskva

Terazije 20, 

Beograd, Serbia