Autumn breath: seasonal revival in Moscow restaurants
With the onset of autumn, the restaurant industry is becoming significantly more active. Guests readily move to warm and cozy establishments to escape from the weather and enjoy new gastronomic experiences, and the restaurateurs of the metropolis offer them not only updated menus, but also fresh conceptual projects. The most striking and notable of them can be found in the traditional Izvestia review.
A bistro with an author's handwriting
Evgeny Vikentiev, who left the stellar Beluga at the end of last year, returned to the gastronomic arena a couple of months ago with a new project, much to the delight of many fans of his work. In a quiet Bryusov Lane, he launched Centrale Bistro, a very small, cozy and completely intimate place with intricate, daring and moderately complex food.
Mackerel with pistachio sauce and pepper gel
The daily updated menu focuses on seasonal farm products, which the chef combines and complements in his characteristic expressionistic manner. Of course, there are time-tested hits like mackerel with delicate pistachio sauce and pepper gel or tonato vitello, where slices of Japanese bluefin are complemented with meat sauce and mint, but there are literally not enough of them. Still, the boss obviously tried to find a new profile for the new project, and he succeeded.
Shrimp, cucumber, avocado, coriander and pepper escabeche
And it's also noticeable from the individual dishes how much Vikentiev missed freedom of expression. So, he creates escabeche from shrimp, cucumber, lightly grilled avocado, coriander and peppers. All this is seasoned with a spicy sauce with drops of fragrant oil. She adds a little foie gras to the smoked pike dumplings, and seasons with a rich broth of mushrooms and hay. The tender and juicy salmon fillet cooked in sous-vide is complemented with steamed spinach and fir berblane, octopus risotto with jamon slices, and scallop with pumpkin cream and chamomile mousse.
Dumplings with smoked pike and foie gras with mushroom and hay broth
In the tiny dessert section, the eye involuntarily falls on coconut panna cotta with tart olive oil and a generous portion of black caviar. The combination is perfectly balanced and, in general, a win-win. But, perhaps, it's worth making an effort and paying attention to the excellent smoked brownie with miso caramel, figs and ice cream.
Right in the bull's eye
A Norman bistro with the characteristic name Pomme Verte, which means "Green Apple" in French, has opened on Pyatnitskaya Street. Norman — because its whole concept is built around cider. The map contains more than 200 positions, however, they come not only from the north of France, but also from other regions and even countries.
Shortbread cake with duck confit
This format doesn't seem to imply any special expectations about food. In theory, here it should be emphasized simple, conventionally rustic, suitable for not the most refined fruit braga — patty, sausages, cheese, stewed beef cheek. However, contrary to expectations, everything turned out to be much more interesting at Pomme Verte.
Buckwheat pancake-biscuits with cheese
Renat Tsaritsansky is in charge of the kitchen, which is clearly boring to cook "like at home." As a result, each position has acquired one or another emphatically authorial accent. So, he added soaked cucumbers and cherry confit to the pathe en crout, nicoise salad with fresh tuna and confit potatoes, hid slices of mortadella in buckwheat pancakes with cheese, pitivier with stewed cheek filling was accompanied by demiglas sauce with prunes, and confit duck pie with spicy apples and onion consomme. Even the warm apple pie was made in the manner of gratin — it turned out to be gentle and elegant.
Pathe en krout with confit cherries, soaked cucumbers, truffle aioli and grainy mustard
However, the menu at the Green Apple is not strictly French. There are doughnuts with cheese and chili pepper sauce, and potato dauphine topped with slices of herring with dill cream, and scallop with corn cream, and cabbage rolls with pike, and ravioli with pork belly.
Potato dauphin
But, of course, it's not just about the author's interpretations. Each dish leaves the impression of precise precision and balanced taste. You don't usually expect such careful execution from a simple meal.
Around the wine
In the autumn, several interesting projects appeared in the capital at once, one way or another built around wine. A real winery has been opened in an old mansion on Spartak Street, with a grape reception area, fermentation tanks and oak barrels in the basement. That's what it's called — Urban Winery. This season, the harvest has already been accepted here, and the first Moscow wines are promised to be presented to the guests in a few months.
Shukrut, mergez and fried potato cream
In addition to the winery, which is open to the public, the project includes a wine bar (in the basement) and a restaurant (on the ground floor). The first one serves light snacks like sandwiches with Astrakhan butter and doctor's sausage, potato chips or sardines with focaccia. In the second— ravioli with stewed cheeks, quail with citrus fruit, sausage mergez with shukrut and cabbage tarte tatin with sour cream ice cream. All the food performed by the experienced Arina Zhuravleva is as friendly as possible towards wine.
Quail in citrus juice
A Barbaresco themed wine restaurant has opened in the basement of another old mansion, this time on Myasnitskaya Street. The spacious wine list contains a decent selection of wines from different parts of Piedmont, as well as other wine regions of Italy and the world. Alexander Ermakov is responsible for the cuisine. He is not only well versed in the intricacies of Northern Italian gastronomy, but also a great specialist in the field of enogastronomical peyring since his days at the once legendary Winil bar.
Beef stewed in red wine
The menu includes Piedmontese bacon, veal terrine, polenta with parmesan, risotto with gorgonzola, beef stewed in red wine, semifredo with hazelnuts and other joys of life.
Semifredo with hazelnuts
Finally, another project called "Three Sommeliers" brought together the famous wine expert Vlada Lesnichenko, perhaps the best Russian cheese maker Alexei Andreev and a serious bread master Olga Dobychina. His idea is to introduce guests to the different formats of combining three basic products — bread, cheese and wine — in a private meeting format, to determine the rules for such a combination and choose their own gastroparks.
Assorted Russian farm cheeses
According to the creators, the original ingredients will not be repeated, which each time promises all participants a unique food experience. The project is not tied to a specific location, it is assumed that it will tour to a variety of locations, and not only Moscow.
We were sitting on a pipe
A new French Trompette bistro has also opened on Trubnaya Street, which is popular with Muscovites. The creators of the project offered the guests their own version of the cuisine of Southern France, with an emphasis on the most famous and popular dishes of Provence and the Cote d'Azur. The kitchen is managed by two chefs at once — Jerome Pfeiffer and Andrey Zelenkov. As befits a restaurant inspired by the port of Marseille, a lot of attention is paid to fish and seafood, the preparation of which was approached with imagination.
Sea bass crudo and salmon crudoo
— In the scallop crudo, we abandoned the traditional technology — instead of slicing, we purchased a special press. This allows you not to damage the fibers in order to achieve a marine taste," said Andrey Zelenkov, brand chief of Mandy's Group. — We serve it with green oil on dill and a small amount of lemon.
Bouillabaisse a la Trompette with croutons and rouille sauce
Based on the stated concept, the title position in the menu, of course, should be considered the Marseille bouillabaisse soup, which is presented here in the author's variation a la Trompette. A fisherman's fish soup made according to all the rules is beautifully poured from a soup tureen, accompanied by the obligatory croutons, herbs and rui sauce. As for the expected thicket of fish and seafood, in this case it can rather be called decorative.
Ratatouille and goat cheese pie
Another specialty from Provence, vegetable stew ratatouille, is served in an original way on a sweet tartlet and accompanied by goat cheese. In addition to the obligatory French fries and delicious asparagus, there is also an interesting bittersweet toasted leek, seasoned with hazelnuts and Dijon dressing.
Flounder a la meunière with capers and lemon
The restaurant's special pride is the chicken on a spit, also known as rotisserie chicken. The bird is pre-marinated for two days, and thanks to this preparation, the meat remains soft, and the toasted skin acquires a piquant flavor. You can order it in whole or in half. The fish theme is revealed by a juicy fried flounder of impressive size, which can be safely divided into two.
Poached pear in red wine with vanilla ice cream
As a signature dessert, Trompette offers warm Madeleine cakes. They are prepared immediately after ordering and it is recommended to take them by hand, always dipping them in sweet vanilla sauce.
Back to the Future
At the end of September, in the annals of the grand cafe "Dr. Zhivago" has opened a new chapter. The cuisine of one of the most famous restaurants in the capital was headed by a young, but already well-known to the gastronomic community, chef Artem Mukhin. Many people remember his interesting experiments with Russian cuisine, which he managed to implement at his previous job at the Savoy restaurant. Already in October, he presented an updated menu of eight items, which very accurately fit into the concept of the project "Dr. Zhivago", based on a subtle game with the nostalgic feelings of the guests.
Aspic of sturgeon
"I work with the memory of taste, but at the same time I add a bit of modernity both in technology and aesthetics," Chef Mukhin outlined his approach to our publication. — We make a classic aspic of sturgeon from saffron broth with a creamy layer of horseradish and cucumber marinated in lemon. And our country stuffed peppers look more elegant — they are skinless mini peppers stuffed with duck meat stewed for eight hours with a sauce of melted cream cheese.
Bell peppers stuffed with duck meat
The word chatka appeared in the name of the new version of the stolichny salad from Mukhin. Under this brand, the USSR exported canned Kamchatka crab, and this product is also included in the snack along with chicken, green pea pods and red caviar. The legendary Soviet potato casserole has also been significantly transformed and looks very elegant. The dish is made from baked potatoes, mashed with butter and paprika, with beef cheeks stewed in meat sauce with porcini mushrooms and powdered horseradish and onions. And, of course, buckwheat was not ignored, so now it is served with special style along with foie gras and soaked cranberries. These and other findings of the chef will surely be appreciated by those who like to return to the tastes of childhood, complemented by interesting and relevant touches.
A new plane
A new fashionable item has also appeared in the gastronomic segment of street food this fall — smash burgers. They are prepared in the Kamel Smash Burger concept project, opened in October by French chef Kamel Benmamar, who is familiar to many from his work at the Vanilla restaurant and the burger Farsh chain.
Smash burgers
—Smash burgers are a type of American sandwich where the minced meat is crushed to a thin pancake of 2-3 mm," Chef Benmamar explained to our publication. — As a result, the cutlet is very juicy and has a crispy crust. These burgers appeared quite a long time ago, and now they have become popular in Europe. In Russia, they were also cooked in some places before, but still the meat in them was not thin enough.
The dish looks emphatically minimalistic and consists of a cutlet, cheddar cheese, pickled cucumbers and light rolls made according to the chef's recipe from fresh potatoes. The meat pancake is made from grass-fed beef coming from small farms. Guests can assemble the perfect burger from several layers of meat and cheese (the chef recommends three layers) and add caramelized onions or jalapenos to them. In the future, tomatoes and lettuce leaves, which are familiar to Russians, will appear as ingredients for sandwiches.
Cookies Rose Cookies
In addition to burgers, the menu includes branded hot cookies Rose Cookies. Kamel adds caramel to the dough for them, so that they turn out with a liquid middle. Inside there are caramel, chocolate and almonds. In the future, they will also be joined by cookies stuffed with pistachios.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
