[3] During the Moscow Restaurant's grand opening, then-Premiere Zhou Enlai invited Khrushchev's delegation to dine there at a state banquet.

With the Chinese government portraying the Soviet Union as a prosperous utopia that China would soon achieve as well, the Moscow Restaurant became a status symbol of modernity.

[4] During the start of the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards stormed into the restaurant, accusing the kitchen staff of cooking "revisionist food" while using the dining hall as a place to sleep.

[4][2] With ballroom chandeliers and towering pillars, the restaurant covers 1,300 square metres (14,000 sq ft) and has a current capacity of 600 people.

[1][7][8] Rarely changing its menu, the Moscow Restaurant still serves typical Russian fare as well as dishes common in Western fine dining, such as borscht, beef solyanka, cream of mushroom soup, chicken Kiev, and kvass.

Depictions and memories of the Moscow Restaurant are typically split between those who associate it with the revolutionary spirit of the 1950s versus those who more remember it as a nostalgic enjoyment.