Antonio Baratto of Italy is head chef of the seafood restaurant Sirena.

Best dish
"My best dish is still to come! But the guests like the crab salad with peaches."

Most popular dish
"Home-style crab salad."

Favorite food
"Meat."

Favorite (other) restaurant in Moscow
"I like Syr and Cantinetta Antinori."

Favorite (other) restaurant worldwide
"I rarely go to restaurants because I prefer to spend vacations with my family on a yacht. But of recent ones, Posit in Barcelona sticks in my memory."

Strangest dish you've tried
"Seventeen years ago, I tried borshch in the hotel Belgrade -- and remember it to this day! It made a big impression on me, although it's not the strangest dish."

Comment on the state of the Moscow restaurant business
"Development is good. The average level is higher than in Europe. But in Italy, we have more family restaurants, while here the scale is different, everything is bigger."

Most important or surprising thing you have learned in your profession
"The most important thing is the quality of the ingredients and the work of the team. As for most surprising -- Moscow cuisine never ceases to surprise!"

Contacts

Cantinetta Antinori,
20 Denezhny Per., 241-3325, M. Smolenskaya.

Posit,
2 Ramon Trias Fargas, Platja de la Barceloneta,
Barcelona, Spain (+34 93) 224-0088, www.posit.es.

Sirena, 15 Bolshaya Spasskaya Ul.,
608-1412/0200, M. Sukharevskaya.

Syr, 16 Ul. Sadovaya-Samotyochnaya, Bldg. 2,
650-7700/7247,M. Tsvetnoi Bulvar.