Non-starving games: St. Petersburg restaurants prepared for a long winter
With the onset of the winter season, restaurants in the Northern Capital have traditionally seriously updated their menus. Chefs offer bright tastes, original combinations and even intellectual games to brighten up long gray weekdays in the stone jungle on the banks of the ice-covered Neva. Details - in the material "Izvestia".
Set in return
How to make a set so that guests would remember it for a long time, and even tell their friends and acquaintances about it on occasion, and even, what's the sin, they would come back again? This is a non-trivial task for any serious master. It seems that everything has been tried in this field: the most exotic products, the most bizarre techniques, the most extravagant serving, even the most unexpected places for dinners (from abandoned quarries to balloons).
Alexander Bogdanov, the chef of Cafe Claret restaurant, who collected several prestigious professional awards this season, decided to try his hand at a new field and offered the guests not only to eat delicious food, but also to feel themselves real gastronauts. His "FoodGeek" is nine servings, and each is preceded by a question that somehow explains the concept of the following dish.
All questions are about food and food only, nothing superfluous. With the strike of a real gong announcing the next round, a minute to think and even a black box. If the situation at the table is quite desperate, you can ask for a hint, although it is not a fact that it will greatly help in finding the right answer. In general, the intellectual component of the set turned out to match the gastronomic one - smart, non-trivial, ironic, emotional and no less tasty. As for the food, the chef used the widest possible palette of techniques: fermentation, pickling, dehydration, baking at low temperatures, boiling, glazing and much more.
Broth from fermented eggplant, jelly from sake, emulsion from mussels, butter from nasturtiums, salted cookies from the skin of guinea fowl, ice cream based on bourbon - this is just a small part of a complex and fascinating gastronomic puzzle.
The set is served on Wednesdays only, with a maximum of eight people at the communal table. Bogdanov promises to constantly change the questions and edible "answers", so no matter how many times guests try the set, each "FoodGike" will be new to them.
The power of flavor
Golden threads with coconut sour cream and sturgeon caviar, scallop with wasabi and condensed milk, foie gras with banana juice jelly, catfish in miso caramel, duck with Sichuan pepper sauce, mooncake with fennel cream, chocolate candy with porcini mushrooms.
All this is carefully collected in Dmitry Bogachev's new set. The chef of Mr. Bo restaurant is true to himself - bold combinations and bright flavors, but at the same time constant search for harmony. It seems that never before Bogachev was so close to it. Fanciful sauces play an important role in this endeavor. Depending on the concept of serving, they are prepared on the basis of ginger, turmeric, shiitake, coconut, red pepper, bananas and even oysters. Sauces not only organically complement, but also seriously expand the flavor palette of main courses, in fact, intensifying it. It is not without reason that the Chinese character denoting strength has become the symbol of the set.
The set turned out to be very slender, logical and consistent. There are interesting finds here in the form of chicken skin chips (as a basis for "toast" from foie gras with banana jelly) or the same golden threads made of yolk dissolved in syrup. But polenta, which is served with duck as a side dish, turned out to be so self-sufficient that it could well claim the role of an independent position. It is prepared as a light mousse complemented with corn water, which covers a tartare of baked and then additionally wilted mushrooms.
An elegant dip
However, the chefs are not only looking for brightness and completeness in Asian motifs. European classics, and the most old-school ones at that, turn out to be no less sensual and expressive. It is easy to make sure of it, having got acquainted with a new set by brand-chef of Mon Chouchou restaurant Dmitry Reshetnikov called Immersion, i.e. "Immersion". His nine courses are an exhaustive declaration of love for French gastronomy, in French, elegant, subtle and beautiful.
It all begins with a crispy ring trimmed with black caviar, served in a Cartier jewelry box. It's a full-fledged meal. But the ladies first unwittingly try it on their finger, ardently photograph it and only then dare to taste it. Next comes an oyster with an edible pearl and champagne perfume. It is followed by a "golden" snail - simultaneously in the form of mousse and tartare under a grape leaf.
The eternal argument of gourmets about which foie gras is better - fried or in the form of pâté - is solved in Mon Chouchou in an extremely simple way: the delicacy is served in both kinds at once, with small additions in the form of nuts, dried fruits and a drop of berry jam.
Heavyweights in the form of bouillabaisse and tournedos Rossini (this dish Reshetnikov cooks from quail, and serves with fried artichoke and black truffle) enter the arena next. Then, as it should be, there is a cheese plate and, finally, two more desserts: a specialty chocolate tart and a small medallion made of white chocolate, Espelette pepper and gold. The gold here is purely for beauty, but the peppers play nicely with the chocolate.
Over the barriers
But who says you have to choose between East and West? In today's world, borders are arbitrary, and gastronomic boundaries are no exception. Itameshi restaurant, which has recently opened on Moskovsky Prospekt, combined culinary traditions of Italy and Japan. And this combination turned out to be much more harmonious than one might think. Chef Alexei Alexeev tried to take the most characteristic of both cuisines, not only the products and dishes, but also the techniques, and made his own menu - recognizable and original at the same time.
Pizza and pasta, for example, are responsible for conditional Italy here. However, the former is made with squid in tom yum sauce, and the latter with shiitake fried in soy sauce. Tartare battura, popular in the north of the Apennine Peninsula, is complemented with eel mousse and kimchi. Grilled octopus is served with mashed potatoes with a hefty portion of wasabi in addition to butter. And duck breast is served with rice with ginger, pineapple with lacto-chili and kimchi radish. The same line can be traced in desserts. Thus, tiramisu is made with soy caramel, and sabayon - with yuzu.
The conditional Japanese history is no less fascinating. For example, beef tataki is flavored with malt truffle sauce and garlic chips, Kenyan beans are cooked in tempura here, and ramen suddenly contains the most authentic porchetta.
In short, there are several more pleasant reasons to travel to winter St. Petersburg.
