Time is rare for Russians: how they experiment in restaurants in the capital | Articles
Canteen chefs continue to search and experiment in the field of tastes. The result was new and quite conceptual gastrosets, discovered in winter in several Moscow restaurants at once.. Details – in the material “Izvestia”.
Oh, how many discoveries we have …
Not much time has passed since the acquisition of Twins Garden, two Michelin stars, but chefs Ivan and Sergey Berezutsky decided that this is not a reason to beat their laurels. In January 2022, they really completely reformatted the restaurant. There is no main menu here anymore, only sets are returned – as befits a gastronomic restaurant of international level. At lunch and as a result, sets assembled from iconic dishes created by the Berezutskys and earlier, in the case, are well studied by those who constantly watch their work. So, cabbage baked in a Russian oven with truffle peaches, and a baked young goat with black stone sauce on the spot.
In addition, the menu of two thematic sets, preserved old names, but completely reassembled – “Vegetable” and “Rediscovering Russia”. It might not be a big mistake being called the latest flagship.
He became intensively painstaking work to find the most interesting products, on the one hand, and intensive scientific research of their gastronomic region, on the other. 11 innings are organized by geographic location, since they are tied to a particular territory in one way or another. The journey begins in the Murmansk region. Further, the route runs through the Vologda region to the southern provinces, captures Kamchatka and Vladivostok, and ends in Siberia.
Everything else is left to the imagination. So, the Vologda region is represented by an infection of four types of black caviar. Three – in the form of tiny “sandwiches” of brioche and sour cream, and one – in the form of a distilled tincture. So these wonderful Russian delicacies can not only be eaten, but also drunk.
Vladivostok is presented in the form of a marine ecosystem: trepang (the rarest product for Moscow), algae and plankton sauce. As an accompaniment, seaweed wine is delicate and salty, very marine in taste.
Armavir is the birthplace of the Berezutskys, it is not surprising that their childhood memories were embodied in a dish symbolizing a stop on this route. Only the most common potatoes with lard, made from raw materials: a root crop, a 3D-printed package of potato peels, rests on a tartar of salted milk mushrooms, smoked lard in the form of a thin petal is placed on top already when serving and melts almost the color, being saturated with non-curd starch and fragrant fat.
The set concludes with an infestation, evoking a reminder of the rapidly fading fires in the Siberian forests. The serving is represented by a mushroom (from mushroom mousse with a berry inside the stem), lightly smoked in smoke from mountain birch bark.
A separate mention may be the serving, made at a very high artistic level.
The last will be first
Nikita Kuzmenko, head chef at Touch Chef’s Place&Bar, called his new set performance “Episode Hero”. The bet is made on “minor” ingredients, usually acting as additions, garnishes or completely auxiliary elements of more complex gastronomic structures. Now they are given a chance to express themselves in full voice. Offal, seeds, herbs, roots, tree bark and even bark beetle larvae were used (however, before serving, the guests must be asked if they will be embarrassed by the real caterpillar on the plate).
Each of the 11 serves is pretty intricate – Kuzmenko mentions getting the product, owning the culinary equipment, and how much attention he pays to serving.
Eventually, for example, beets take on the color, texture, and flavor of smoked beef ribs, and are even served as bone-in tartare. Candied carrots with sea buckthorn and shrimp flavor are great friends with bisque ice cream. Smoked squeals become the most delicate mousse, and are served with a crispy cracker on dark beer. “Scrambled eggs” is constructed from vegetable milk, carrot and corn fresh. The oak bark goes into a broth enriched with tree fungus garum, konjac flour rice and Tibetan mushroom sour cream. And the goiter gland of the calf is revealed from an unexpected side in a sharp increase in lacto-fermented and fake cottage cheese from vegetable cream infused with hay.
Whether Kuzmenko succeeded in creating new heroes – to make a decision. But the fact that it forces us to think differently about the most ordinary products and, moreover, expands the boundaries of useful tastes, is harmful.
Everyone has their time
Another very conceptual look at what such an initial product is and what its potentialities are, was discovered by the chef of the Artest restaurant (2 Michelin stars) Artem Estafiev. In their opinion, he offers to philosophize and independently answer the question of whether time has a taste. Estafiev is sure that he has, moreover, surprisingly deep, complex and diverse. This idea is at the heart of the original set, in which each dish has at least one residue that has passed the test period.
Estafiev experiments a lot with fermentation – the restaurant even has a whole laboratory infected with it, and guests can see it (visiting the holy of holies of the restaurant is an obligatory part of the chef’s program). During long fermentation, lasting up to a year, with a combination of different strains of yeast and temperature, the original product is often transformed beyond recognition. Not only does its taste change, but also its shape and texture.
On the table, successively replacing each other, clouds of real “olives” from lacto-fermented gooseberries, red beans fermented on rice straw (the Russian version of the origin of Japanese natto paste), blackened onion, which acquired a pronounced taste of prunes during aging, king crab , seasoned with Tamari sauce (a liquid that appears on the surface of miso paste as a result of prolonged fermentation), lamb with sauce based on a three-month-old beef garum, blackened Uzbek lemon with hints of eucalyptus in taste and much more.
The occurring phenomenon is a rather complex puzzle, a solution that is interesting in itself.. For example, a tomato – in the form of boiled pulp and tomato water – is supplemented with shallots, celery, trout caviar, nasturtium and blackened garlic. As a result, it acquires a piquant and slightly astringent taste of persimmon.
Botan shrimp is served with fresh radishes, strawberries, rhubarb, trout roe and duck ham (over a substance composed of complex koji), seasoned with a sauce based on nectar from tea rose fermented for at least six months, grape seed oil and strawberry vinegar.
Inspired by the following cocktail B-52, created with blackened Jerusalem artichoke, blackened beets and cream of hazelnuts. Fermented Jerusalem artichoke gives the dish caramel notes, and beetroot grows it with delicate coffee shades.