Mr Novikov controls over 50 restaurants in Moscow but doesn’t have an office. He started out with a loan of $50,000 from a Soviet cooperative after being turned down for a job at McDonalds. He now also owns supermarkets, cinemas and florists and is dubbed the “blini baron.” Aside from his 7,000-person empire, he owns the £26m Villa Fontanelle on Lake Como and is said to be especially partial to bread, black cherries and apricots.
His restaurant in Berkeley Street, Mayfair is one of the best to have opened in 2012. I eat there all the time.
I love the bar at Novikov in W1 – it’s full to the brim of stunning ladies!!!!!!