Bread for spectacle: collaboration of theaters and restaurants has become a trend
In competition with modern entertainment and cinema, theaters are losing out. Art directors have long suggested enticing the audience with stars, backstage tours and quests. And recently there has been a fashion for creative partnership with restaurants. Mayakovsky Theater invites to a dinner dedicated to the cookbook of Sophia Andreyevna Tolstoy. Spectators of the Helikon Opera can try a dessert in the form of Cinderella's carriage, created by a confectioner after watching the opera of the same name. And in the Obraztsov Puppet Theater before the performance "Who killed Frida Kahlo" offer Mexican cocktails. "Izvestia" found out what theaters go to attract and keep the audience.
Kitchen notes of Count Tolstoy's wife
In the search for tickets to the Mayakovsky Theater's performance "Russian Romance" about the life of Leo Tolstoy and his wife, the audience came across an invitation. Chef Vladislav Piskunov will hold a dinner at Matryoshka restaurant on January 22 dedicated to the cookbook of Sophia Tolstoy with her signature recipes. Also at the dinner guests will be offered to talk about the difficult fate of the wife of the genius, who is played by People's Artist of Russia Yevgenia Simonova in the Mayakovsky production.
Set No. 2: "Russian Romance" at Matryoshka restaurant
- This is an interesting collaboration, it's the first time we cooperate with the theater," Vladislav Piskunov, chef of the Russian cuisine restaurant, admitted to Izvestia. - We chose the play "Russian Romance" to create a special menu, because there is something to latch on to. A few years ago, Tolstoy's cookbook was published by the Yasnaya Polyana Museum. I took part in this project. Based on Sophia Andreyevna's recipes, we came up with a set.
Play "Russian Romance" by Mayakovsky Theater
According to him, themed dinners are in great demand: 50-60 people always come. The average check in the restaurant is Br3 thousand, and a dinner in the Tolstoys' style will cost Br4.9 thousand. Guests will try veal forshmak, chicken with porcini mushrooms and lemon pie.
Olivier with folk artists
In the playbill of the Theater on Trubnaya there is an unusual performance "On the Trumpet". The audience is gathered in the foyer and divided into groups according to purchased passes. Each group has its own program. It is divided by thematic performances: "Dostoevsky", "Tolstoy", "Tatiana's Day", "Gorky", "Tchaikovsky", "Chekhov" and, finally, "Olivier". Ticket price - from 3.2 thousand to 7.7 thousand rubles. And for 12.7 thousand you can buy "Olivier + dinner" to stay in the theater restaurant with the actors after the performance. The thing is that in the mansion, where the theater is now located, there used to be a famous all-Moscow restaurant "Hermitage", where people went to taste the viands prepared by Lucien Olivier, to listen to Chaliapin, Vertinsky.
There were separate offices with ladies of low social responsibility and cheerful disposition. And in the kitchen Lucien invented his famous salad, which every spectator of the performance will definitely try and hear a story about the history of the theater from Irina Alferova, Tatiana Vedeneeva, Tatiana Vasilieva, Alexander Galibin, Vadim Kolganov, Yuri Chernov, Elena Sanayeva.
A carriage for "Cinderella" and "The Canterville Ghost"
The cultural and gastronomic festival Set-o-Mania is now taking place. In "Cafe Pushkin" together with the Theater of Nations prepared sets "Pushkin's Tales", inspired by the works of the poet and the play by Robert Wilson, in which the main role is played by the People's Artist of Russia, director Yevgeny Mironov.
Dessert "Golden Rooster"
The source of inspiration for the restaurant "Kazbek" and Vakhtangov Theater was Lermontov's "Masquerade" with a star cast: Evgeny Knyazev, Lidia Velezheva, Yuri Shlykov, Viktor Dobronravov, Leonid Bichevin. Suluguni ball with goat cheese mousse and dried grapes, cod with shkmeruli sauce and black shila - this is how Russian classics look on the plate. And also in the restaurant's menu there is a set dedicated to the play "Ordinary Miracle" by Evgeny Schwartz.
Chef "Bochka" was captivated by the characters of "The Cherry Orchard" from the repertoire of the Taganka Theater. Here you can try an appetizer with red caviar "Ranevskaya", dumplings "Gayev", dessert "Eternal Cherry Orchard". In the sets "Stargorodsky Lion" and "Magic Night on the Volga" from the restaurant "Shinok" and theater "Russian Song" you can learn the most vivid pages of Ilf and Petrov - from the appetizer "Mystery of Chairs" to the desserts "Poet's Dream" and "Citrus Diamond". "Chanoire" chooses a bold reading of the classics, because their partner was the Theater on Bronnaya. In the plates, guests will feel the presence of "The Canterville Ghost" by tasting squid mortadella in the form of a snail.
Set No. 1: "Cinderella" by Turandot Restaurant
- For restaurants and theaters this is an opportunity to get acquainted with each other's audience, coinciding in values and interests, - said in the press service of the holding Maison Dellos. - Every month in the restaurant-palace "Turandot" there are ballet and opera performances accompanied by a set dinner from the chef. In the schedule for 2025: operas "Turandot", "Don Quixote" and "The Phantom of the Opera", ballets "Giselle", "Swan Lake" and "La Bayadere", in December "The Nutcracker" was held five times with a great full house.
Now the restaurant offers dishes inspired by the Helikon Opera's hits "Cinderella" and "La Traviata".
Cake with bas-relief of a girl for "La Traviata" set.
- Do you know what a good performance and a gourmet dinner have in common? - asks Eduard Musakhanyants, Deputy General Director, Artistic Director for Artistic and Organizational Work of Helikon Opera. - Both can turn your world upside down in a few hours. And now imagine that these two pleasures have decided to unite. World practice shows that this union does not just work, it works wonders. At the Metropolitan Opera, chefs create menus inspired by arias, and at London's Covent Garden, desserts rhyme with the libretto. And this is not just marketing, it is a new cultural reality where art becomes multidimensional and gastronomy becomes philosophical. At Helikon Opera we know for sure that Puccini goes well with parmesan, and Mascagni's "Rural Honor" is worthy of its own flavor of ice cream.
The modern spectator does not just want to watch a performance - he wants to live it with all his senses. And if this requires creating a special menu or inventing a new flavor of ice cream, why not? After all, art should bring joy. As Eduard Musakhanyants says, theater and restaurant collaborations increase the income of both parties.
Art fiesta in Mexican style
The benefit can also be in attracting customers. For example, a few days before the New Year, the Moscow Academic Musical Theater named after K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko together with the Italian cuisine restaurant Garda offered guests a dessert inspired by Hoffman's fairy tale and Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker". By ordering it, each visitor could win a pair of tickets to the performance. And upon presentation of a ticket to a performance at MAMT, a gastronomic compliment awaits all theatergoers.
The Moscow Academic Musical Theater's production of The Nutcracker
Food as a bonus was a feature of the performance "Fortunatissimo, or Hopelessly Happy Man", based on Gioacchino Rossini's opera "The Barber of Seville" by conductor and head of the Moscow Soloists orchestra Yuri Bashmet together with director Viktor Kramer. Actor Yevgeny Stychkin played the main character and cooked Italian pasta to the music. Then he served it to the audience, offering to raise a glass of red to Mozart's masterpiece.
And in the Obraztsov Puppet Theater the audience of the production was treated to a glass of red to Mozart's masterpiece. The audience of the adult production "Who Killed Frida Kahlo" was greeted with Mexican cocktails.
- Art fiesta in the Mexican style is an overture to the park play by Boris Konstantinov "Who killed Frida Kahlo" (18+), - said in the press service of the theater. - Collaboration with SimplePrivé allowed the audience not only to understand the artistic intent of the director, but also to feel the concept of the project and live the carnival aesthetics of the performance.
The production of "Who Killed Frida Kahlo?"
Oleg Tabakov's theater invited a professional chocolatier - in the buffet before the renovation of the building it was possible to taste and buy handmade sweets and even try to create delicacies at master classes.
As Izvestia's speakers admit, the collaboration between the restaurant business and theaters is a mutually beneficial story from the point of view of image. It works to maintain a warm and lasting relationship with the audience, who are very attracted to such projects.
