I’ve always loved cooking–it’s always been one of the few things I’ve really loved.
Vladimir Chistyakov
A solemn awarding ceremony of outstanding chefs of the country within the framework of the CHEF OF THE YEAR award 2022 took place in the Smirnov mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard.
The award not only opened new names in the field of high cooking, but also gave recognized leaders fame at the All-Russian level.
The winner in the Chef of the Year nomination was restaurateur and chef Vladimir Chistyakov, under whose leadership there are three restaurants in Moscow: Folk, GRACE Bistro and Rocky 2.
A graduate of the famous Ragout gastronomic school, Chistyakov did not immediately enter his culinary path: first there was journalism, and then marketing.
In 2014, in Mexico, I found myself in a professional kitchen for the first time in my life. And I realized that this is it, that I no longer want to do what I was doing before. I got high from everything: from the work itself, from the atmosphere, from the people.
Chistyakov’s signature style of cuisine is a combination of ethnic and local with European classics in a modern shell. He gives the main role in each dish to only one product, allowing two or three others to emphasize its merits and favorably place accents. The original approach gives birth to new tastes and gives unique impressions.
Thus, the focus of the Folk restaurant on Tsvetnoy Boulevard – a joint project of Chistyakov and his colleagues Dmitry Romanov and Anton Pinsky – is the opening of new horizons for national cuisine. Here, local ingredients and Caucasian, Asian, as well as Oriental traditions are skillfully combined in a modern exposition.
Inspired by ethnic classics, brand chef Vladimir Chistyakov and chef Mark Shah Akbar created a new history of familiar tastes and aromas for Folk. One is a Siberian who spent his entire childhood in Tashkent. The other is a half–Iranian who has worked in Sochi on the border with Abkhazia for almost ten years. Today they cook together ailaj with truffle and morels, talagani cheese with chestnut honey and satsebeli, and bake tender cream tortillas with pistachios and lakhmajuns with crispy edges mixed in a wood-burning restaurant oven.
Ailaj with truffle and morels
Flatbread with pistachios
Even a barbecue is a real work of art: this is not just meat, but beef tongue with baked potatoes and caramelized onions and the smokiness of birch bark, salmon with dates and kebab of chicken on a flatbread with hummus and tomatoes.
Beef tongue kebab
Chicken kebab
The oriental note continues to play with new colors combined with Mediterranean elegance in the elegant boutique bistro on Spiridonovka GRACE Bistro. The positions on the menu fully correspond to the name of the restaurant: Grace – from English “graceful” and “elegant”. This is about the symbiosis of intelligent secularism with modern gastronomy, and about Chistyakov’s ability to mix completely different, seemingly, cuisines.
Here even ordinary cutlets get a new unusual incarnation: homemade chicken minced meat with fragrant morel sauce and a “sea” version of sea bass with shrimp, seasoned with spices berbere and yuzu-ponzu.
Chopped chicken cutlet
Sea bass cutlet with shrimp
The trend of combining European and Mediterranean cuisine continues cabbage rolls with crab in the leaves of Savoy cabbage with a delicate and rich crab bisque.
Cabbage rolls with crab
Mediterranean crudo is interestingly combined with tahini and narsharab, which adds more expressiveness to the taste of the scallop.
Scallop
You can also meet the beloved classics: crumpled avocado with salmon and pecorino, dorado in white wine and pasta with both crab and red fish.
Salmon on mashed avocado
Dorado in white wine
Spaghetti with crab meat
But in Rocky 2 on Bolshaya Dmitrovka, the author’s style of Chistyakov, together with the contribution of chef Alexey Volkov, was embodied in the reconstruction of little Italy.
Italian specialty chefs cook using ingredients and combinations that are unconventional for this country. Buratta with tomatoes is served with floral honey and orange juice.
Buratta with tomatoes
Tuscan salad – panzanella, which is made from tomatoes and onions – is prepared here with the addition of shrimp, zucchini and artichokes.
Panzanella
And mascarpone cheese is added to risotto with mushrooms.
Risotto
Rocky’s flagship snack is “Sardinian Escolar”: fillet of oily fish marinated in baked garlic is cut into thin slices with green salsa.
Sardinian Escolar
Even the usual Italian focaccia is baked here on an unusual sourdough from Antonovka.
Focaccia
And as an alternative to the all’italiano burger – beef tartare seasoned with yolk, mustard and grana padano accompanied by crispy Romano lettuce leaves.
Beef steak
Oysters and sea urchins are brought from the raw bar, and salmon and octopus are grilled.
Grilled octopus
Vladimir Chistyakov’s long and tortuous life path has led him exactly where he needs to go – to a new and harmonious vision of modern cooking, combining fashion trends with both European classics and local ethnic elements from different countries.
Author of the article: Varvara Kartushina
