Based on a wide range of sources (office documents of party and Soviet bodies, medical institutions, diaries and memoirs of Leningrad residents), the article analyzes the work of canteens of enhanced nutrition in blockaded Leningrad in April — July 1942. These canteens were intended to provide increased nutrition to dystrophy-weakened citizens without taking time off from work. For this purpose, a special ration was developed, the energy value of which was almost twice as high as the caloric value of the usual blockade ration. Since Leningrad medics established the fact of the predominant role of protein starvation in the etiology of alimentary dystrophy, special importance was attached to filling the diet with animal proteins and their vegetable substitutes (casein, soy). Selection in canteens and regular observation of changes in the condition of visitors were entrusted to doctors of polyclinics and outpatient clinics. The article provides data on the effectiveness of enhanced nutrition, and also analyzes organizational problems inherent in the work of canteens of enhanced nutrition (bureaucracy, unsanitary conditions, failure to meet the norms of food stocking). The authors conclude that a number of measures necessary from the point of view of doctors (prolongation of the period of stay on the enhanced diet, reattachment to the canteen) were considered by the city administration as abuses, which was one of the reasons why the network was shut down. Despite the short period of existence of the canteens, the experience of organization of augmented nutrition in them was important for the fight against starvation mortality, development of the principles of therapy of alimentary dystrophy, overcoming the consequences of specific blockade diseases.