Best dish
"I love to work with meat, so I'd choose our grilled marble rib-eye steak with shallot confit and assorted mushrooms as the best dish on the menu. My never-ending experiments with the degree to which I fry the meat and the combination of ingredients keep me working on my personal cuisine."
Most popular dish
"Sea bass fillet, baked with crab meat and quail's egg on white wine sauce with steamed vegetables from the Moskovsky restaurant menu."
Favorite food
"Since I moved to Russia, I really like traditional homemade pelmeni, not from the shop."
Favorite (other) restaurant in Moscow
"I really like Nostalgie, and not only because I used to work there."
Favorite (other) restaurant worldwide
"Le Meurice in Paris."
Strangest dish/food you have ever tried
"It was a turtle soup I tasted in South Africa. The taste was so awful that thinking of it makes me shudder."
Do you try to be authentic or adapt your cuisine to the local market?
"I adapt my cuisine because I have to work with local products and suppliers to correlate the dishes with the final price. I am always searching for new products brought to the local market to extend my cuisine and experience."
Comment on the state of the Moscow restaurant business
"The Moscow restaurant business has a rapid and steady growth. It develops in different ways, many projects are very successful, but it still suffers from the lack of service and food/product quality."
Most important thing you have learned as a chef
"Patience and responsibility. These two make me grow personally and professionally."
Contacts
Le Royal Meridien National, 15/1 Mokhovaya Ul., building 1, 258-7000, M. Okhotny Ryad.
Le Meurice, 228 rue de Rivoli, Paris, France, (+33 1) 4458-1010.
Nostalgie, 12A Chistoprudny Bulvar, 625-7625, M. Chistiye Prudy.
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