Restaurants present a growing body of scientific research in the field of anthropology of food, as well as in economy studies, management, tourism etc. Restaurants provide a special space where many characteristic features of a society are played out, in particular social groups and roles, symbolic consumption, borders of private and social life, and presentations of cities, regions, countries, in which they are located or which they mean to represent. As to the ethnic themed restaurants, foreign cultural anthropologists mainly focus on the venues belonging to ethnic minorities or migrants, raising the problem of authenticity and culture exoticization. However, it is important to define the role of such restaurants in their native milieu, especially in the context of globalization. Ethnic themed restaurants play an important role in sustaining and promoting local culture both to the foreign visitors and to the local residents, for they provide opportunity of one’s exposure to cultural discourse – an exotic one for the tourists and a shared one for the natives. In this respect the restaurant’s authenticity plays the main role and can be defined by menu, cooked from the local products and according to the local receipts. Nevertheless, the venue’s “atmosphere” is of the same importance; it is created by means of interior design, decorations, costumes of waiters, background or live music, personnel and service style. In Chisinau such restaurants present some hubs of ethnic rural culture in an urban environment, therefore their decoration very often includes either authentic objects and materials (for example, Sălcioara, La taifas, La crișma, Gok oguz), or stylizations, if their owners sought to reinterpret or modernize traditions, as at La plăcinte chain or Fuior Gourmet, specifically. Authenticity, in such event, may be qualified ambivalently – as an objective reality or as a social construct. It is important consequently to trace and analyse its perception by the restaurants visitors, as well as by interior designers and professional community.