Their lives are followed, their posts are liked, their direct messages never stop. We gathered the chefs from the largest number followers on Instagram.
Here are the top 10 chefs who not only cook outstanding food, but also connect with their audience. Their accounts are an inspiration for young chefs and a source of information for anyone interested in gastronomic topics. They write about culinary competitions, new restaurant openings, trends, travel, announce interesting dinners... Some of the chefs share behind-the-scenes footage from the kitchen, others post pictures of their impeccable dishes, and others shoot funny stories. They are different, but one thing is clear - their lives are interesting to watch. And most importantly, you don’t have to travel far to try the cuisine of these chefs, because they all live and work in St. Petersburg. Journalist Anna Kovarskaya, who has been writing about the gastronomic sphere for more than 10 years and knows all the chefs on the list personally, briefly talks about the style and creative path of the guys.
Alexander Belkovich, chef of restaurants and
Number of subscribers: 108 thousand.
Battery Man Alexander Belkovich came to Moscow from Severodvinsk at the age of seventeen. He calls Isaac Correas his first teacher, for whom he worked in Moscow on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya; Correas taught us to think and cook cosmopolitanly. He began close cooperation with Belkovich at the restaurant, then Marivanna happened in London and New York and a bunch of other restaurants in the holding. The last joint project was “Belka” on Petrogradskaya - it remained with Belkovich when a couple of years ago his and the holding’s paths went parallel. Today, the charming and charismatic Belkovich is responsible for food at the international chain Ketch Up (the latest addition happened last fall in Dubai) and a lot more. Manages to play basketball, surf and write cookbooks. Constantly does two things at once. Firstly, he travels: Belkovich’s social pages broadcast either a glamorous beach in Miami, a zoo in Bali, or a tasting in Manhattan. Secondly, he works as a presenter of culinary programs: a sea of positive emotions and baked turkey recipes for thousands of Russian housewives.
Evgeniy Vikentyev, chef of Cell restaurants, and
Number of subscribers: 27.3 thousand.
Recently, residents of Berlin and the surrounding area no longer need Gropius Bau and other contemporary art spaces - they have Evgeny Vikentiev and his restaurant Cell in the western district of Charlottenburg. To describe art-house food, Vikentiev's palette needs to be bright, full of all the colors of the rainbow; in plates, shellfish are combined with turnips and buckwheat, wild boar with char caviar and wild sorrel, the impossible with the possible. The love for perfectionism comes from childhood - it was customary for the family to cook on weekends. My parents were real foodies, but in the 1990s there was no such word, just like there were no products in stores. But the products were taken from somewhere (along with recipes from culinary magazines obtained from somewhere), and on home kitchen Greek moussaka, Italian lasagne and even Chinese noodles with shiitake. After the professional lyceum, where the same genes led him, Vikentyev worked as a cook in the restaurants Il Palazzo, Grato,. Until I found myself a partner in the “Wine Cabinet” on Rubinstein, who will be five years old in the summer; a year later, with the same team, on the site of a jewelry workshop, he opened Hamlet + Jacks on Volynsky Lane. He spends less time in St. Petersburg, but on the menu of the same Hamlet you can always find the signature stewed turkey with lasagna made from buckwheat flour and the perfect Total White dessert: coconut panna cotta, lime leaf mousse, lemon sorbet and sesame meringue.
Igor Grishechkin, restaurant chef
Number of subscribers: 21.6 thousand.
Igor Grishechkin after Smolensky state institute arts, he worked as an industrial climber and salesman at Euroset, and after the army he began to think: what to do, what does he do best? I always loved to eat well and cook; from the age of five I kept a notebook of recipes: fry a piece of sausage on one side, then on the other. At the age of twelve, he began to be interested in confectionery: he prepared complex cakes and filled them with homemade jelly. One day I was lying on the sofa in thought and watching a Jamie Oliver show. And I became a fan of his person, his style, his fiery gaze. And I decided to feed people. I received qualifications as a 3rd category cook, did an internship in Smolensk and realized that you couldn’t jump over your head. He got ready overnight and moved to Moscow - he started with the capital's Casta Diva, then there was Remi, then the legendary Ragout on Belorusskaya, then Blogistan. In 2011, he got married, moved to St. Petersburg and got a job as a chef at the LavkaLavka cooperative; there I met the founders of the CoCoCo restaurant, and off we went. The permanent chef of the restaurant on Voznesensky, Grishechkin is a master of decoy dishes and dishes with meanings: his “Porridge from an Axe,” crab under a fur coat, and the touching pink “Pig Piggy Bank” are distributed in hundreds of copies on social networks. Grishechkin’s credo is new Russian cuisine, for which he spares no effort in obtaining the most local products: in winter, no tomatoes or cucumbers, apple chutney, cilantro pesto. Free time loves to spend time in nature to turn off his head.
Roma Redman, chef of the miteria, bar and restaurants and
Number of subscribers: 19.1 thousand.
Future steak adherent Roman Redman was Lazarev in his early adolescence - he received his nickname from rappers for his red mohawk. I became a cook because of my grandfather - my grandfather went to sea as a cook, returned with chewing gum and jeans, and deftly managed the feeding in the kitchen. Roman’s logic was this: to have chewing gum and jeans, you just need to cook well. Times have changed and a lot has become available, but the dream remains. This dream forced me to quit the instrument-making technical school and in 2000 get a job in Shvedsky Lane. I started from scratch: I peeled carrots and got slapped in the face. Then he worked everywhere: in, as a cook in the cold shop at Katya Bokuchava’s, in and. The first time I became a chef at the Ego club on Inzhenernaya, then there was pan-Asian food delivery, opening, kitchen. In 2013, he began collaborating with the Baranienbaum butcher shop - and became firmly attached to animal proteins. Redman opened his first meat place with two partners in 2014: Chuck miteria on Gorokhovaya, steaks for 550 rubles. The euro was jumping, the rent was prohibitive, so they pulled it out and pulled it out through a family contract. When Chuck got to his feet, Redman, with the same Pushkarev and Churilov, opened Holy Ribs with ribs. From fresh creativity - patronage in Moscow, Tawny on Fontanka and Brewmen & Redman's Kitchen. And for the soul - courage and brutal frying of meat on the YouTube show Redman's Kitchen.
Dmitry Blinov, chef and owner of gastrobars and restaurants
Number of subscribers: 10.1 thousand.
Our gastronomic everything, a boy from the St. Petersburg district of Kupchino, Dmitry Blinov, received his first and last specialized education at the vocational school at Zvezdnaya. He came to the Moskovsky railway station as a cook at the Petropavlovsky restaurant in 2003. The restaurant had two floors; Blinov began his first working day by drinking a little to celebrate and falling down the stairs. Then he stopped drinking and fried cutlets at Petropavlovsky for another three years; then he worked in the Razgulay tavern on Karavannaya, in, in Petrogradskaya, etc. Five years ago, together with his partner Renat Malikov, he built Duo Gastrobar on Kirochnaya and set the starting point for the latest restaurant history. The diminutive Duo employed three people; Duo Band now employs two hundred. Today there are four restaurants under Blinov’s management: in them, as in best dream Any restaurateur, everyone meets - gastrosnobs, jackets, students and even pensioners. Blinov is a pioneer, hence the copying. It happens that an out-of-town intern works in the kitchen at Tartarbar or Duo Gastrobar, and then friends send them a menu from Voronezh or Surgut, where there are scallops with buckwheat, eggplant with yogurt mousse, and a good half of the items are Blinov’s. He loves provocations (at the Madrid Fusion international cooking competition he prepared food from a pig's head) and his team, to whom he often declares his love.
Anton Isakov, brand chef of the culinary school
Number of subscribers: 8,057.
First, Anton Isakov, just in case, trained as a ship's technologist. He began his cooking career in 1999 in the officers' mess in Bugry, where on the first day he stood on cabbage: chopping four bags in a row. Fabrizio Fatucci owes his first culinary knowledge, under whose guidance he learned to fry eggplants for Parmigiano Reggiano and roll the first pasta in Sculptors. I managed to work on a real farm, where I fed lambs and cleaned up after piglets. I studied management and management at the Italian car factories Lamborghini and Pagani, after which I became interested in large companies. He returned and went straight to , then worked closely with the Ginza Project. Last year Isakov, a flying chef consultant in great demand, is torn between his native St. Petersburg and the rest of the world. He prepares herring at Madrid Fusion, launches restaurants in Vladivostok and Kaliningrad, and lands at an exhibition in Kazan. Isakov is a brilliant communicator, and has recently been heading the microwave school of culinary arts in St. Petersburg - a space for pros (and dummies too) in Pirogov Lane. The media inverted “Philadelphia Risotto” by Isakov is still on the menu, caramel rikotniks with sour cream and halva mousse are on.
Ilya Burnasov, restaurant chef, and
Number of subscribers: 7,799.
As a child, the future creative brand chef of Italy Group Ilya Burnasov watched a culinary program on TV, where cartoon zucchini and tomato first sang songs and then became vegetable salad, and also cut out recipes from the program guide. I wanted to become a cabinet maker - a man’s job, but my mother took me to the culinary school on the Moika; Ilya saw a bunch of guys and stayed. In my second year I went to work at the Mozart cafe, where I immediately began baking strudels - with apples, cherries, and candied fruits; I was spinning rolls in a sushi bar on Sredny Prospekt and even stood on the bar. He started in the Ginza Project holding as a cook at Terrassa in 2007 and there he understood what zapara was and worked in the holding at startups. I became a chef for the first time at the “Barbecue” restaurant in Zelenogorsk, every day by train an hour there, an hour back. When he joined the Italy Group in 2013, he subsequently became a sous chef at Moskovsky; the very next year he opened as the right hand of Valentino Bontempi. It’s difficult Burnasov can cook, but he doesn’t want to - in the two restaurants under his care, Hitch, Atelier Tapas & Bar and the Italian bistro Locale, he makes understandable comfort food, which you don’t need to think about, but enjoy. Gives freedom to imagination and experimentation at gastro dinners and tours. His business card considers a dish from Atelier: machete with baked sweet potato puree. To ensure the quality of his work, he regularly comes to the restaurants under his supervision as an ordinary guest.
Sergey Fokin, preparing to launch new restaurants, ex. Chef at Four Hands gastrobar
Number of subscribers: 7,712.
Sergei Fokin did not study well at school - not because of laziness, but his family was constantly moving. When it came time to choose a specialization, the range was small: car mechanic, hairdresser or cook. While I was studying at a vocational lyceum, I worked - I peeled potatoes at Baron Munchausen, I was a pizza maker, I even cooked African cuisine, then I was hired at Il Palazzo - for three years of work I was awarded an internship in Liguria. Then there were Terrassa, “Baranka” and “Volga-Volga” from Ginza Project; At the age of twenty-one, he became the chef for the first time at the trattoria Il Grato. Then opposite the BDT. First independent project with partners launched at Zvezdnaya at the end of 2015: Four Hands was evening, original, and the menu changed every day (except for hits, of course - chicken heart pate with halva, beef tartare with smoked chechil cream). For the last year, Fokin has been preparing for a new serious project in Repin, right next to the bay; the restaurant is planned to be built by May. There are a lot of plans: a laboratory with fermentation, a full-time herbalist, trips for birch sap in March, collecting morels in April, collecting pine needles and young cones in June. In search of a Russian product, Fokin flew all over the country from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok - he thinks who else should elevate Altai deer meat, Novorossiysk snails and Baikal seals to heights, if not a Russian chef?
Artem Grebenshchikov, restaurant chef
Number of subscribers: 4,710.
The future owner of the “golden hands” of St. Petersburg, Artem Grebenshchikov, came to a sushi bar on Zhukovsky Street to earn money - he skipped money to study at the University of Aerospace Instrumentation. I liked the kitchen in the cafe - in addition to the money for cooking, I was able to enjoy the process. We worked in the kitchen together with the chef, when the chef was suddenly fired, he remained in charge and began looking for the next position as a chef. Using the Yellow Pages directory, I called restaurants alphabetically; they didn’t hire the twenty-year-old as a chef—they openly laughed on the phone, but they still hired him for the restaurant in Vyborg. Four years later, the Museum of Modern Art was looking for a chef. Grebenshchikov gave a tasting - vegetables with apple sauce and steamed halibut - and got to work. During the four years that he commanded the kitchen at Erarta, it was unknown whose art was more modern, downstairs in the restaurant kitchen or upstairs at the exhibitions; guests still remember watermelon with sun-dried tomatoes and crab with tarragon. Last summer, Grebenshchikov went free and, together with his brother Alexei, opened Bourgeois Bohemians on Vilensky Lane. No one had time to utter a word before VoVo burst in and spun like a top in the gastronomic orbit of St. Petersburg. Key words to describe food from Grebenshchikov: modernism and delicacy. Among the hits: scallops with daikon and bavette steak with black truffle.
Roman Kiselev, restaurant chef
Number of subscribers: 3,850.
Roman Kiselev’s competitive advantage is European, read French, education. Roman Kiselev appeared on the gastronomic horizon of St. Petersburg a year ago - he became a chef at the Volna restaurant on Petrovskaya Embankment. Now Kiselev is twenty-four; Already at fifteen he knew that he would become a cook; in his native Ufa, he cooked boeuf bourguignon and ratatouille for his brother, sister, father and mother. Roman has no shortage of purposefulness and impetuosity - at seventeen summer holidays went for an internship to Moscow at Novikov’s restaurant “Ministry of Agriculture”; there I saw what a restaurant is like from the inside. At eighteen, he attended the Paris school Le Cordon Bleu, where he received a classical foundation, then an internship with Pierre Gagnaire at the Michelin-starred Gaya by Pierre Gagnaire. At the same time, he studied French; At nineteen he graduated from the Parisian school of Alain Ducasse. At twenty, an internship at the Australian restaurant Attica and the Stockholm Michelin-starred Frantzén. At twenty-one he returned to Russia and worked in the Moscow Fahrenheit for Anton Kovalkov; at twenty-two he ended up in St. Petersburg at Volna. Kiselev’s cauliflower steak with green buckwheat and bavette with chicory and shallots were liked by many, including Sokolov and Dmitriev from Italy Group. Since the fall, Roman has been the creative chef of the GooseGoose restaurant on Bolshaya Konyushennaya. I haven’t fully developed it yet - I updated the team, sorted out the cost; within the company, he gives lectures on global restaurant trends and shares international experience work.
Evgeniy Vikentiev, the chef who heads the Hamlet & Jacks and Wine Cabinet restaurants in St. Petersburg, a member of the Slow Food Chefs Alliance, opened a restaurant in Berlin CELL .
And we stopped by to congratulate him, meet the international project team and ask how everything worked out in the new place.
They talked about the symbiosis of local products and world tastes, ideas that can be revealed through food, and the characteristics of local farmers.
Opening a restaurant abroad is quite a bold step. Why did you choose Berlin?
To implement the concept that I had in mind, a metropolis was needed. And Berlin is one of the main metropolises in Europe - both in terms of the number of residents of different nationalities and in terms of atmosphere.
Our cuisine is based on local products - farm vegetables, fish North Sea, meat from local farmers or hunters. My main goal is to bring out their taste, tell people how cool these products are, without focusing only on them.
For example, if I need to show the taste of local carrots, why can’t I take coconut milk, which does not lose its taste during transportation, or some Indian spices. Use lime for slaw or some kind of sauce? If a dish is waiting for a little touch and accent, then why not add it? On the contrary, it’s cool. Now people generally perceive everything differently. Such a Great Era of Megapolization, or something.
I have an international team: two Germans - a senior sous-chef and a pastry chef, in the cold shop a boy from Italy and a girl from Denmark, my second sous-chef from Australia, one boy from Turkey, one from Romania, well, I’m from Russia. This was specifically done to complement the concept.
Tell us more about the concept. How is the restaurant structured?
The restaurant is open only in the evening, and only with a set menu. There are two of them - the main seasonal menu, into which we put some idea, and a vegetarian menu, also seasonal, dedicated to vegetables and dairy products.
The restaurant's traffic per day is only 55 guests, because I have 55 seats. The regular menu and the vegetarian menu are ordered almost 50/50.
The first menu is called Time steps. One ingredient from each dish passes into the next, and such a connected chain is obtained - using the example of the transition from position to position, we show the progression of seasonality, a kind of time steps.
The Time steps set includes 9 dishes. This is not counting appetizers - small appetizers at the beginning and sorbet, which refreshes the mouth before the main course. And after the last two desserts, small desserts are brought out. That is, in fact, it turns out to be 12-13 courses.
The second menu is called Roots Religion. In it, dishes are arranged not according to the usual principle of “from cold to hot”, but according to the strength of taste. Starting with a neutral dish, we gradually move on to enhancing the taste. And some delicate dessert may be in the middle of the set.
Why is this being done? It seems to me that the stereotype - first you need to eat a cold dish, then a warm one, then a hot one, then dessert, may be correct, but there is no logic in this. When a person eats many flavors, it is important to understand each dish and that’s why we decided to try to work in this format.
Both sets have the same number of dishes and the same price - 110 euros.
It’s interesting to work with sets because you can put some idea there, tell the story that you want to convey to your guests. Everything is important here: the order of serving, and the thread that determines the connection of one dish with another.
But local products remain the main thing. To what extent are farmers in Germany willing to work with restaurants, ready to ensure quality, regularity of deliveries and everything else that is a problem for us?
There are no such problems here. All farms are close to the city. You can throw them a list, they will collect everything and bring it.
The only inconvenient thing is delivery only once a week. So when ordering, you need to have a clear understanding of your vegetable consumption, and calculate it a week in advance.
What other advantages... Farmers themselves ask what we want for spring. That is, I need to think about what products I will use, approximately in what volume, make a request, and they will then grow it for me.
Do you have to guarantee the application? Should I pay some kind of advance?
I don’t know such nuances until I delved into this issue so deeply. We are now buying what they have. But it will start in spring new season, and the first fresh products will arrive from mid-March. Therefore, we will now write everything down, agree that they will grow for us and reserve a certain amount of products for ourselves.
When do the first spring vegetables appear, what do they look like?
Here, the season for fresh vegetables from the garden is from March to the end of November. In March there are already new potatoes, asparagus and sorrel begin, the first lettuce comes in March too, a lot of greens.
Foxes appear in the forest. The chanterelle season here is not like ours - from mid-July to the end of September. They grow in two stages - from April to June, then wait out the heat and appear again in September-October, when it becomes cooler.
What about meat supplies?
The meat is very good. Pork, which is super popular in Germany, is generally of insane quality.
In a small town near Berlin we found one farm with Wagyu beef. This is beef with increased marbling, it has a bright taste and good texture. In Berlin, it is not supplied to any restaurant or store - everything that is grown is used for themselves. But we managed to come to an agreement with them! Already in the next updated menu, we are planning one dish with this beef.
Are they ready to give you some parts or whole carcasses?
There is a problem here. So far we have agreed on half the carcass: they will cut it up for us, and we will take it in parts, as needed.
How do you find farmers? How difficult is the search process?
My sous chef does this because he is local and it’s quite easy for him to do all this.
Around Berlin we visited three vegetable farms, two pig farms, two bull farms, and even a farm where mushrooms such as shiitake and oyster mushrooms are grown. All this is within one hour by car from the city. It seems to me that it is easier to find farmers here than in the Leningrad region.
Maybe because there are few farmers near St. Petersburg?
I wouldn't say there are very many of them here. But I know of five or six restaurants in Berlin, well, maybe eight, that directly cooperate with farmers and rely specifically on farm products.
It's not like that a large number of for a city of 4 million. But the pricing of local products here is more objective and adequate than here.
Perhaps the reason is that due to the milder climate it is easier to grow vegetables, and the state supports farmers here.
There are also companies that buy large volumes from farmers and then organize full logistics and delivery to restaurants. Sometimes it turns out that working with them is cheaper than working with farmers directly. In general, no problem.
It is important to note that we only buy farm vegetables grown in open ground. Greenhouse or industrial ones are enormously different from them in taste and even appearance.
Of course, it’s nice to work with responsible farmers and good, quality products.
CELL- Berlin, Uhlandstraße 172 (Berlin, Uhlandstraße 172).
Evgeniy, not so long ago a third kitchen opened in the city under your command. As far as I know, everything turned out very spontaneously.
One of the founders of the Wine Cabinet is my good friend Zhenya Litvyak. We met with him one Monday, and he asked us to create a menu of cold appetizers. I say: “No problem. I need a week to come up with everything and a week to work it out.” But that was not the case: there were only three days left before the opening. Then I came home, opened a bottle of Rioja, since the bar was a wine bar, after all, I “caught” a creative impulse and by morning I had come up with everything.
After all, the kitchen was originally supposed to be installed by Alexander Berkovsky?
This is true, but it was decided that a completely non-trivial menu was required, suitable for an unusual wine list. Nobody offended anyone, and Sasha and I still communicate well. Its format is also in great demand, just in establishments of a different kind.
What unites the menu of the “Wine Cabinet” with the cuisine of “Mozhno” and “Waves”, besides the author?
Despite the fact that everyone associates wine history with Europe, the Shkafu focused on Russian drinks. Therefore, I decided that it would be appropriate to use my favorite format here too - cook from local products.
In our political situation this is not surprising.
This is not because of sanctions, I have loved our products for a long time. The only difficulty is that they constantly arrive of different quality, different sizes, and sometimes they don’t arrive at all. No stability. And we experience sanctions in different ways: for example, at the start in the “Cabinet” we had pickled peppers stuffed with chevrou and pine nuts. After imports from Europe were banned, we, without thinking twice, made the cheese ourselves. They took Adyghe cheese, feta cheese and cream, mixed it in a certain proportion and added a sheet of gelatin.
Why did you once decide to focus on local products: did you find advantages or did fashion work that way?
Now they like to talk about the “new Russian cuisine” trend. But what kind of trend is this? All Scandinavians use local products and prepare classics, interpreting them in their own way, Italians cook from their tomatoes, in their own way. olive oil- this is the foundation of what any normal cook needs to do. We need to carry our culture, show local traditions, and not work with frozen products brought from nowhere. But since childhood, the fashion for everything foreign has been imposed on us; even in kindergarten they boasted: “My car is imported.”
We are still experiencing the consequences of the Iron Curtain.
Unfortunately yes. By the way, there is one more technique that I use everywhere. I’ll tell you a terrible secret: when my dishes contain some unusual combinations that might scare you away, I don’t put them on the menu. For example, at Volna I had salsify soup, but I understood that with such a name it would simply turn sour. Since it contained smoked duck and a little cream for texture, I called it “creamy duck soup”: it’s hard to come up with something more poppy, and the dish was eaten in tons. The Wine Cabinet has beef tartare, which is dressed with honey, but such things cannot be written. Nine out of ten people will think: “Oh, how can you mix beef with honey?”
I can’t help but ask you about leaving Volna.
There are reasons why I didn’t suit the founders, there are reasons why I no longer wanted to continue working there - on a common wave, we decided to amicably part ways. But my sous-chef Sergei Shchelchkov remained there, and now he heads the kitchen.
What are your plans?
Currently, mixologist Sam Konyakhin and I are preparing an interesting project for the Wine Cabinet. In my opinion, we have never done this before. Food pairing of dishes and wine will no longer surprise anyone - we decided to make cocktails based on wine with the addition of spices and combine them with food. Thus, we first complement the taste of food with the aroma of wine and spices, and then wash it down with a cocktail - everything reveals itself completely differently.
I can’t look further yet. There are proposals, but first a series of meetings and negotiations need to be held.
Why did you decide to become a chef?
Since childhood, I really liked to cook, I had some kind of zeal for it, and it was important to do it cool and correctly. Already at the age of five I stood on a stool, turned on the stove and fried eggs. My parents didn’t forbid anything, I was very naughty and always did what I wanted. Then, when I went to school, I fell in love with frying pancakes. I made them for a very long time on medium heat, and not on high, as my grandmother did, because I noticed that then they had a more even and beautiful color. I got up on a day off at nine in the morning and went to the kitchen, however, they helped me make the dough in advance, because it is not entirely easy. In general, all my relatives work in the energy sector.
Now the profession of a cook has become very popular, many young people want to become chefs. Is it necessary to receive special education or just watch the videos on YouTube and read cookbooks?
Unfortunately, we don't have a single normal one. educational institution, after finishing which the cook can immediately go to work. I have two specialties - a pastry chef and a businessman in the field of catering enterprises. But I acquired all my knowledge and experience in practice, in the process of work. Of course, I also watch videos on YouTube. Everything depends on the quality of information, and you need to be able to sift it out well. Even if you search on the Internet "how to properly fry a steak" then we get at least 5 different ways. There can be completely different points of view on any issue.
Duck breast, smoked duck, crispy duck, parsnip, beet mole sauce
Who can you call your teachers?
When I was 24, I made my first really big money by working as a chef on a yacht in France for three months. And then I decided to go to the chef I really wanted to see for a long time - Massimo Botture. It seemed to me that Modena was close to Nice, but in fact it turned into a seven-hour journey by train with four transfers. After dinner, I had such crazy emotions that I didn’t want to say anything at all; I walked in silence for half an hour. He has some kind of magic in the restaurant. I believe that in terms of philosophy and ideology, this is the strongest chef of all those currently existing. There are no boundaries for him, and he perfectly combines all types of art, which is very close to me. I am also inspired by Rene Redzepi, Vergilio Martinez, David Muñoz... The last time we were at the Street Xo restaurant in Madrid, three of us tried the entire menu until it hurt even to breathe. I really like to look for new combinations of tastes, new unusual combinations, I wait for the “wow effect”, which happens only once, then it is no longer possible to repeat it. It's some kind of chemistry...
Do you already have your own style?
Five years ago I called him intelligent modern cuisine(modern intellectual cuisine): the use of a modern approach, new techniques, local seasonal products - many of the principles that Ferran Adria laid down at El Bulli. You get intellectual pleasure from a dish with an idea, a story, and the way the chef tells it to you. Of course, it would be much easier and more economically profitable for me to open a restaurant with 300 seats and cook cutlets, tom yam and sushi, but I’m not interested in this, I cannot do this sincerely. I'm doing something new, unique, interesting. Any creative person has value due to his individuality. If you have no individuality, then you have no value.
Beef tartare, goat cheese sauce, soaked lingonberries, mushroom broth
What inspires you?
Music, concerts, museums. Previously, I listened mainly to heavy music, because... I grew up among musicians, now many of them have become quite popular, for example, the group “Psyche”. Now I can listen to neoclassical artists like Ludovico Einaudi, electronic music, heavy music. Going to art galleries is also very inspiring. I often have moments when ideas pour in one after another, I don’t know where they come from. This seems to be inspiration. I have one endless note on my phone with a set of sketches of some interesting combinations. And when I need to update the menu, I just open it and start pulling something from there, based on what is currently seasonal. Now I’m working on a technique for fermenting one product in the juice of another - I’m fermenting celery in fresh apple juice. It turns out delicious, we will soon introduce it to the menu.
Do your guests like all these dishes?
We have no outsiders. In two years there was only one dish, and I recently removed it - a large raviolo from rye flour with halibut and topped with scallop mousse and malt sauce. We all liked it, but there are some dishes that are a little hard for most people to understand. Their development vector is not so dynamic; they simply cannot keep up with chefs who work with products for 14 hours every day, 6 days a week. Therefore, the boss must sometimes take a step back. We have very difficult food, not for every day, but I’m lucky, I have a very good audience and cool guests who travel a lot, go to gastronomic restaurants in Europe, and for them coming to us is an outlet.
Halibut pate, omul stroganina, pike caviar
In general, a good knife, not a dull one, should be first on a chef’s shopping checklist. Like the knife, like the cook, as they say. The second is form. Third - a book Modernist Cuisine, a bible for every chef, and ideally, when he goes to bed, he should put one of the books under his pillow so that the knowledge is easier to assimilate (laughs). Five volumes cost about 600 euros, when I started I didn't have that kind of money, so I downloaded it from the Internet. Now I bring three or four books from each trip, from the last one, for example, A new book "3" Kike DaCosta. Still need to watch movies Noma: My Perfect Storm, Noma at Boiling Point about Rene Redzepi, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" and, of course, all Chef's Table And The Mind of a Chef with Anthony Bourdain. Of course, you definitely need to learn English in order to read books in the original, go on internships, and understand your colleagues at international festivals. I know English well, but I continue to study several times a week.
Do you have a hobby?
Before I became seriously interested in gastronomy 10 years ago, I studied music - I played the guitar. But then I realized that in order to achieve great success in one thing, you need to fully concentrate on it. And I chose gastronomy. But music and gastronomy have a lot in common - there is harmony and a range of tastes, a certain pattern and culmination. Recently, at the Chef’s Breakfast festival in St. Petersburg, I had a master class on the topic “Hearing,” in which I combined gastronomy with music and original video footage. Many people came up to me later and thanked me for this experience.
How is St. Petersburg different from Moscow?
St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Moscow doesn’t evoke any emotions in me; I feel uncomfortable there. I am a native St. Petersburger, all my ancestors are from St. Petersburg, so St. Petersburg snobbery is probably in my blood (laughs).
Who would you like to have dinner with?
With Kurt Cobain Ferran Adria, Salvador Dali.
“Until the 9th grade, I studied very well, but at the age of 14 I reached a turning point, and as a result of this, I was expelled from school for non-attendance and indecent behavior. Then I decided for myself that I needed to go on studying and get a specialty. I was choosing between a hairdresser and a cook, but since I loved cooking since childhood, the choice was obvious. During the training process, I felt potential and thought I was a cool chef as I confidently walked into my first interview with my friend, who this moment made a good career for himself in a large restaurant holding company. Only a foreign chef, a cool interior, a comfortable kitchen... but my ambitions were dashed after a few days of work. Everything that I was taught turned out to be nothing more than unnecessary information that had nothing to do with reality. Strong resentment and disappointment befell me at that moment, and having completed my studies and, in the process, working in various institutions, I decided for myself that the fine dinning format was my direction to move.
The restaurant il Palazzo is the only possible starting point for my activities. Chef with a Michelin star from Italy, work 22-25 days a month, endless re-reading of magazines and books. At that moment, I completely stopped playing music (I had played electric guitar in a band before) and stubbornly began to focus on cooking.”
WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY NOW?
“Currently I work as a chef at the Volna restaurant, plus I actively participate in various side projects and events. Now I’m taking part in the opening of a restaurant with original Japanese cuisine and with the well-known Katya Bokuchava.”
WHAT IS THE MOST ENJOYING THING ABOUT WORKING IN THE KITCHEN?
“Everything except the bureaucracy, which in Russia, compared to Europe, is developed to the point of impossibility. I really like the team spirit, pumping up my guys by developing their imagination and scientific knowledge. Creating new dishes, ideas that push you to do it and much more. I don't work in the kitchen, I live with everything that happens there and around! Cooking is the only art for all senses!”
DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING, UNREALIZED PROJECT IN YOUR PLANS?
“The number of interesting projects in which I am either invited or create it myself is very large, and I Lately there's not enough for everything. Now I’m working on a project with my friend Anton Isakov to organize a gastro dinner, in which the pairings for the dishes will be not the usual wine, but Belgian beer, the gastronomic value of which, in my opinion, is underestimated.”
YOUR VISION OF “NEW RUSSIAN CUISINE”
“New Russian cuisine is essentially something that should have appeared much earlier, but Russia is a country to which everything takes a very long time to reach, and sometimes does not reach at all. We have been fed pastas and rolls to such a state that most people, under this layer of mozzarella with wasabi, do not see what is right in front of their nose. N.R.K. This is an author’s cuisine, based on its local products, its own culture and traditions, retold in the author’s own style.”
WHAT IS YOUR COOKING STYLE?
“My direction is only my original dishes based on local products. But this does not mean that I do not like others. I work with them too, they just don’t give me the same sensations and emotions. Yes and going out to world stage you need to give people what only you have. This is the history and heritage of your dishes as a creative unit.
I call my style intelligent modern cuisine. This is a kind of food with meaning, with application. modern techniques food processing."
WHAT DO YOU SEE “FOOD OF THE FUTURE”?
“I see the food of the future not much different from what we have now.
I really hope that chefs will continue to develop and there will be more interesting signature establishments.”
ORGANIC OR GMO?
“I have an extremely positive attitude towards organic food. Unfortunately, our market is oversaturated with food products grown using various additives and preservatives. There are a lot of organic stores in Europe and America, but the price, for obvious reasons, cannot be competitive.”
MANY CULINARY TRENDS COME TO RUSSIA FROM ABROAD. HOW DO YOU THINK WE COULD BE DIFFERENT?
“Unfortunately, only a small part of the trends from the West reaches Russia. In general, our gastroculture culture is at an extremely low level. I don’t argue that there is a surge now, I hope that its momentum will last for a long time.
I travel quite a lot and go to the most interesting restaurants where I find myself. Honestly, lately there hasn’t been much that has surprised me or given me any kind of unreal pleasure. We have worthy chefs who can prove themselves very well. It’s just that the whole world’s attitude towards our country, for various reasons, is underestimated and even dismissive. It will be much more difficult to get out. But the more complicated it is, the more interesting it is!
Our country needs to establish an agricultural industry! Our territory is unreal. We have all! For example, I order Murmansk scallops, I like their taste and, again, it’s more pleasant to work with my own products, but they cost 150 rubles per kilogram more than Canadian ones!!! Only the distance of their transportation is tens of times less. Yes, because they have everything on very “powerful rails” and production volumes allow them to be made cheaper. Local products remain very difficult to obtain and the quality is not very consistent. That’s why many people prefer not to work with them.”
“Try to cook mainly from local products. This is the asset of your country that you must promote. Constantly study, read, try. Without this there is no growth and development. Travel, penetration into other cultures is a necessary part of spiritual and creative development. Create your own, don’t be afraid to experiment despite criticism. Masterpieces are born from endless trial and error. And most importantly, don't cook if you can avoid cooking! Everything you do must come from within. Sincerity is always the main spice in the kitchen of any real chef!”
