A wave of panic swept Europe and faith in British beef plummeted when United Kingdom scientists announced a possible link between "mad cow disease," bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its fatal human equivalent Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).
The European Union announced a worldwide ban on British beef as consumers around the world thought twice about steak for dinner.
"I understand Russia has never been much of a customer for British beef to begin with," a MAFF spokesman said.
Though the MAFF spokesman indicated there was no proven link between BSE and CJD, British Agriculture Minister Douglass Hogg proposed Britain kill and incinerate 4 million cattle over the next five to six years to eradicate the disease.
This does not rule out British beef arriving in Russia via third-party countries, though the Ministry of Agriculture in Moscow thinks that unlikely.
Mad cow disease is nonetheless on the minds of St Petersburg restaurant-goers.
"Many people have asked about it," said Larisa Saleeva, the manager of Brassiere at the Grand Hotel Europe.
"But our beef comes through other channels, not from England," she said.
A spokesperson for the Nevskij Palace Hotel restaurants said their suppliers were Quality Products of the United States.
At these restaurants, managers said questions about the British cattle disease were less frequent.
BSE bears similarity to a neural disease of sheep called scrapie and some think British practices of adding unusable portions of sheep -- such as brain tissue -- to cattle feed to enhance protein content may have caused the spread of BSE to cows.
The spokesman for MAFF said Britain is currently adopting new protein policies for feed.