Cold is not a hindrance: what is served in Moscow restaurants in winter
We have a long weekend ahead of us, during which we can not only relax properly, but also get new gastronomic impressions. The harsh and snowy winter did not in any way disrupt the restaurant life of the capital, where many remarkable events took place. The most striking and notable of them can be found in the traditional Izvestia review.
Russian cuisine without "Domostroy"
Masha, a long—awaited project by Alexander Rappoport, dedicated to Russian cuisine in its current form, has opened on Varvarka. No fake stories, no gastronomy, no restored recipes from pre-revolutionary cookbooks. Everything is emphatically modern, intelligent and, most importantly, recognizable. Familiar foods and familiar tastes come first.
Creme brulee
The experienced Igor Grishechkin, who once headed the famous Cococo restaurant in St. Petersburg, is responsible for the cuisine. It is not surprising that even relatively simple dishes here are brought to a serious restaurant level, but they are not overloaded with techniques, ingredients, or meanings.
Unlike other Rappaport projects, the menu at Mashenka turned out to be emphatically concise. The names of the dishes convey exactly what you would expect to see on a plate: vegetable salad of potatoes, radishes, cucumbers and green peas with homemade sour cream, veal jelly, ear of three types of fish, frying pan fried potatoes, pasta with homemade stew, ministerial schnitzel and so on.
Lamb shoulder with baked apple, raisins and glazed carrots
Among the most interesting items, we note aspic with walleye, soaked gooseberries and creamy horseradish (which, in a rare case, really looks like horseradish, and not a dull sweet—spicy mass), bleached dumplings with a juicy filling of marbled beef and a bright sauce of black pepper (to which I would like to ask for a piece of bread to collect from there are no leftovers), properly cooked filet mignon with kohlrabi cabbage (the latter is so good that it could well claim an independent place in the main menu), and tiny Brussels sprouts stuffed with crab and seasoned with potato muslin.
Warm salad with salted ginger and smoked potatoes
In the dessert menu, which Marina Raeva is responsible for, it is definitely worth paying attention to a honey cake with wax ice cream, cream cheese brulee with melted milk and an airy honeysuckle souffle with a bright berry flavor, decorated with fresh blackberries.
Modern heritage
The Cultural Heritage Site or OKN, a restaurant promising a reinterpretation of Russian cuisine in interiors created in collaboration with contemporary artists, opened on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in late January. Young chef Vasily Dolmatov, for whom this is his first independent project, boldly combines familiar cultural and gastronomic symbols, so there is something to see on the menu, even against the background of a general passion for Russian cuisine.
Spelt, beef tongue, turkey hearts
In snacks, you should pay attention to nonsense — a little-known domestic analogue of ceviche with red and oily fish seasoned with pickled onions. For meat lovers, Set No. 1 with roast beef marinated in mustard (juicy beef is specially bought here from farmers from Ryazan), adjika and squash caviar is suitable. Adjika is adapted to more universal tastes, so it will appeal to those who dislike spicy, but may disappoint fans of the "hotter" option. But squash caviar, which in texture, taste and appearance resembles a nostalgic version from childhood in its best performance, will definitely not disappoint anyone.
Cheese tortilla with various herbs, vegetable stew
A cheese tortilla with a generous portion of greens is a godsend for those who appreciate a hearty and understandable meal. And connoisseurs of experimenting with vegetables will be pleased with the complex balance of flavors in dried beetroot, which is served with dried duck and goat cheese. It's not surprising if you're tempted to try borscht in such an environment (it's offered here, of course), but mashed potato soup with herring and dill oil would be a much more unusual and advantageous choice. The classic combination of flavors for Russian cuisine was able to change into the format of the first one, and they did not lose. Fish cutlet is served in a fireman's style, in onion sauce and garnished with black caviar, the sauce for a hearty meat pie is effectively made in a marrow bone, and the obligatory beef cheeks appear on the menu in an unusual frame of fragrant "green" spelt and turkey hearts.
Fish cutlet with black caviar
The overall experimental spirit reaches its maximum in the dessert menu, for which Irina Leochko is responsible. The pear stewed in wine is served with a rich creamy ice cream made from pigtail cheese, which retains its characteristic smoked taste (a dessert developed personally by Vasily Dolmatov). A delicate sweet meringue with potato ice cream, which can easily pass for caramel, and toasted Borodino bread, which surprisingly harmoniously balances the pronounced sweetness of the dessert. But don't let the boldness of your decisions scare you. And if you still want something simpler, you can take a rum girl, which is accompanied by vanilla sauce. As the name implies, it will be more modest and restrained than a traditional woman, but it guarantees the most understandable end to an already memorable meal.
A place with a name
Restaurants with the chef's name in the name are extremely rare in Moscow. It's simple — it imposes a huge responsibility on the owner of the name, which often threatens to put an exorbitant burden on his shoulders. From the appearance of the hostesses to the quality of the most common ingredient, such a project has received increased attention from the very first steps, and, of course, not always positive. Nevertheless, in mid-December, the former chef of Cantinetta Antinori, who for twenty years turned this institution into one of the capital's gastronomy, opened his Essenza by Mauro Panebianco.
Pagre fish tartare with celery and bottarga
The new restaurant turned out to be intimate, cozy and quiet. Mauro prepares high Mediterranean, mainly Italian cuisine, which he knows perfectly well, but which he feels a genuine passion for. The menu turned out to be relatively small, but quite original — at least, not a single dish from Cantinetta Antinori can be found here, and the classic positions have been seriously improved.
Vitello tonnato
Anchovies are added to the vitello tonnato sauce, and the dish itself is seasoned with tiny capers. The red Sicilian shrimp carpaccio is complemented by delicate strachatella and freeze-dried raspberries. Shrimp with stracciatella also works great as a filling for tortelli, accompanied by a sauce with zucchini flowers. The young goat is baked for twelve hours at a low temperature with herbs, then lightly fried to obtain a spicy crispy crust, and served with artichokes, potatoes and a sauce based on real chianti. Finally, the most delicate tiramisu made of coffee, cream and cocoa may well claim to be one of the most refined in the capital.
Creamy panakota with wild berries
However, as is often the case in such cases, the most inconspicuous things are sometimes best said about the level of the kitchen. To make sure of this, it's worth trying, for example, Cantabrian anchovies with croutons and butter whipped with honey and pollen. A seemingly trivial snack suddenly reveals a generous scattering of flavors. After that, there are no questions about what she does in the "Delicacies" section.
The Breath of Africa
The Jamaa restaurant opened on the 84th floor of the OKO Tower at the end of last year on the site of the former Birds. The creators, restaurateurs Alexey and Dmitry Vasilchuk and chef Alexander Railyan, proposed an original concept based on the idea of community (jamaa actually translates from Swahili as "community") and a combination of gastronomy from different regions of the world. The most striking example of this approach was the drop of African dishes in the chef's interpretation. By the way, he had previously gone to South Africa for inspiration.
Lentil croquette with Biltong meat
Since the cuisine of Africa is not very familiar to Moscow, it is being introduced gradually, making sure that the dishes are understandable to the capital's guests. The delicate shrimp tartare, pleasantly contrasting with the sour coolness of lemon sorbet, makes you think of a vacation at sea, but it still doesn't reach the emotionality and saturation of authentic Africa. Marbled beef tartare with pickled shiitake mushrooms turns out to be much brighter and more textured — the hot rhythms of the savannah are already beginning to sound here. Traditional biltong dried meat can be tasted along with unusual lentil croquettes. Tortillas with oxtails, as if they had just been removed from a campfire, can compete with tartare in terms of expressive textures and richness of taste.
Tortilla with oxtails and romesco sauce
Exotic lovers should definitely try the ostrich steak — a delicate cutlet here accompanied by poached egg, spinach and a rich spicy sauce - or the traditional Boer lamb sausages "burevurs" with mashed potatoes native to both us and Africans. If you want to return to the flavors of the sea, you should stop at grilled shrimp - they are served in curry sauce with fried corn slices.
Banana ice cream with date confit
Desserts are opening a real gastronomic portal to Africa. The bright sourness of lemon sorbet served with filo dough is set off by bergamot cream; and the combination of banana ice cream with the density of dried bananas immediately recalls the traditions of exotic tribes. Rare examples of a spectacular dessert with unusual textures and flavor combinations that do not leave a feeling of understatement and do not overload after an already plentiful meal. Since mid-February, the African destination in Jamaa has also been represented in Safari Brunches, which are served on weekdays from 12:00 to 17:00.
Table Decoration
At the end of January, a new chef, Sergey Shiyanov, joined the team of the French Bijou bar, familiar to the capital's gourmets from interesting experiments in his previous project, the Peruvian Alpaca establishment. In the updated menu, he has reworked the time-tested bar classics, paying special attention to the aesthetics of the dishes.
Brioche with mascarpone cheese and two types of anchovies
"My task was to preserve and at the same time slightly update those dishes that guests have been coming for for years, for example, tartare, onion soup or mussels in Charente style according to the recipe of the mother of the creator of the bar," chef Shiyanov told Izvestia. — The idea of modernization was suggested to me by the very name of the project, which translates from French as costume jewelry. So the main idea of the update is to make each dish look like an eye-catching decoration.
Camembert with pear stewed in wine and pear chips
Based on this idea, our interlocutor added a lot of bright natural colors to the new positions. Hibiscus combined with red wine makes a pear stewed in sour cream purple. Dried apricots, on the basis of which the orange glaze is prepared, gave the confit duck leg a bright orange hue. And the tomato powder gave a slightly expressive appearance to the smoked salmon rice. Also, as a crispy accent and decorative elements, a variety of chips appeared in the collection, which are made in the bar from jerusalem artichoke, sweet potato, tomatoes, pears, tapioca and parmesan.
Desserts straight from social media
Recently, a new dessert has appeared on social networks — "Japanese cheesecake" made of yogurt with crunchy cookies in caramel glaze, with cinnamon added. The Mátes bistro chain also made its own version of a simple sweet dish, which attracted a million audience.
Japanese cheesecake
"This is a lighter and healthier dessert that really tastes like a classic cheesecake," the project's PR service explained to us. — We repeated it in a healthier high-protein version with Lotus biscuits and a little coffee.
A fashionable novelty can be easily repeated on its own. Choose your favorite cookies, put them in Greek yogurt, put them in the refrigerator and wait until they are properly soaked and soaked.
Another hot chocolate pudding popular on social media with a mountain of whipped cream owes its original presentation to the pastry chefs of the Parisian Carette restaurant. In Moscow, they decided to repeat it at the Senti Menti restaurant, naturally in their own interpretation.
Hot chocolate, banana cream and cinnabon
"The secret to the success of such a sweet dish is the combination of ingredients traditionally associated with winter," Andrey Lapshinov, brand chef of Senti Menti restaurant, shared his opinion. — Thick and rich hot chocolate, similar to pudding, fresh berries (or sweet cinnabon) and light whipped cream — all these ingredients are individually tested and liked by many, and together create a full-fledged dessert with a twist.
Author's tiramisu according to the family recipe by Mauro Panebianco
You can make this dessert at home. You need to make a thick enough hot chocolate, beat the cream to a soft consistency (not too tightly) and use fresh or high—quality frozen berries, and for an alternative version, bake a cinnabon with cinnamon and cream. The main thing is to assemble and serve the dessert quickly while the chocolate remains hot.
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