Nikolay Bobrov is the brand chef of the Berrywood Family restaurant group, as well as the chef of one of the most famous Krasnoyarsk restaurants – “Tunguska”. In December 2021, he became the winner of the professional award “The Best in the industry” in the nomination “Chef of the Year”, and this year he was recognized as the “Chef of the Siberian Federal District region” in the framework of the award “CHEF OF THE YEAR”.
Nikolai Bobrov revives the culinary traditions of his native Siberia with their love of fire and wood-burning stove, pays special attention to local products, rethinking the gastronomy of a unique region in a new, modern way, showing how interesting Siberian cuisine can be. At one time, he interned at the St. Petersburg restaurants “Cococo” with Igor Grishechkin and “Tartarbar” Dmitry Blinov, as well as at “Brisket BBQ” with Alexey Kanevsky in Moscow.
Recalling the experience gained under the guidance of Grishechkin, Bobrov says:
One of the first and main internships, and in the still small and original “Kokoko” on Nekrasov. A great opportunity to see how to make a restaurant not only about food.
“Not only about food” is perhaps the ideal characteristic for Nikolai’s independent project – “Tunguska”, which represents a modern version of Siberian cuisine with local products and global technologies.
Due to the polar combination of Siberian culinary traditions and modern cooking techniques, the restaurant concept is truly innovative.
Here ‘s how Bobrov tells about her:
We gathered, outlined and discussed the concept. Already at the start, it became clear that there was no such project yet. People have heard something about modern Russian cuisine thanks to Kostya Ivlev and Volodya Mukhin. But after all, Russian cuisine is a broad concept, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, and we planned a concept limited to the territory of the Siberian region. As a result, we formed our understanding. It was difficult, there was no such restaurant anywhere, there was nowhere to draw and see if everything was technically correct. We came up with this project out of thin air and brought it to life. This is how the restaurant “Tunguska” appeared.
The starting point of the concept was the Siberian gastronomic traditions, which are the quintessence of long-term interaction of Russian cuisine with the cuisines of the nearest Asian neighbors, as well as with the peculiarities of the diet of the indigenous peoples of the North. This distinctive soil in the restaurant “Tunguska” was enriched with technologies, trends and shades of tastes from different parts of the modern global world. Special attention in the menu is paid to local products brought from different parts of Yenisei Siberia, as well as cooking technologies on live fire – in a Russian wood-burning stove and on the coals of an open grill.
Some of the most popular positions in a restaurant with a Siberian chill fully correspond to the original trends of this distant cuisine.
Dumplings are perhaps the most famous dish of Siberian cuisine, and in the menu “Tunguska” they are dedicated, albeit not a large, but a whole section. The special love of the guests of the institution was won by dumplings from northern fish, which are poured there with slightly smoked fish broth – for the aroma of the fire. Dumplings are served with farm sour cream and salmon caviar, as well as with a piece of branded half-baked bread from a wood-burning oven with whipped butter.
The deer pie is also worth mentioning, which also has deep family roots. Nikolai says that his grandmother Alevtina cooks meat pies for almost all holidays: their appearance on the table is associated with something very warm, kind and sincere. Therefore, Bobrov took his grandmother’s recipe as the basis of the dish, but he reworked it a little. So, he lays out layers of deer meat, pieces of fried foie gras, boletus, spinach, covers with puff pastry and bakes in a Russian oven. A pie with mushroom demiglas is served.
Nikolai really appreciates the time spent with his grandmother. In this context, he recalls how they cooked chocolate butter together:
As a child, I loved mixing foods. For example, semolina porridge – with vegetable oil. I liked this unusual taste. My grandmother and I cooked chocolate butter. Then it was a scarce expensive product. And Grandma found a way out – we did it ourselves. She melted the butter to room temperature, added cocoa powder there, and from the heart, and we mixed it together. The result was a viscous chocolate mass: something between chocolate butter and cheese, and “Nutella”.
Obviously, the chef’s respectful and reverent attitude to products stretches from childhood. Bobrov often notes that respect for products and love for their work are the main success factors in the culinary field, because “if you work only for
If you didn’t cover the greens, but they wilted, forgot to remove the fish, and so on – this is a careless attitude. The energy of the cook is always transmitted to the guests through food. If you are in a bad mood or do not like cooking at all, but go only to receive a salary, such a story will not lead to anything good,” says Nikolai.
In “Tunguska” gastronomic festivals are often held, Bobrov’s dishes presented at which reflect his true desire to create art through food. One of such festivals held in 2022 is “Taigastro”. With the help of the event, the Krasnoyarsk team of chefs under the leadership of Nikolai decided to popularize Siberian products and regional cuisine and invited projects from other cities to support the initiative.
The chef offered such festival positions:
Profiteroles from Tuvan dalgan with veal tartare and grayling caviar
Yenisei whitefish under stroganov made of porcini mushrooms and mussels with truffle spelt
Lingonberry sorbet with ice cream from Nazarov condensed milk with white chocolate and pine nuts
It is interesting to note that the dessert third course is a mixture of frozen cranberries, condensed milk and pine nuts familiar to almost every Siberian, but in a new way. Bobrov prepared a glaze of white chocolate with nuts, lingonberry sorbet and condensed milk ice cream and laid them out in layers on a chocolate croustillant. You need to hit the chocolate with nuts with a spoon, and grab the whole filling with a spoon at once. And that’s when the same taste comes from childhood will be revealed.
Another interesting set, invented by Nikolai, and based on the results of an ethnogastronomical expedition to the Republic of Tyva, is completely imbued with the atmosphere of the Siberian folk entourage – “The Call of Tyva”. During the June expedition, for five days, the restaurant team studied the culture and traditions of the nomadic people, as well as the gastronomy of the region. Impressed, Bobrov reviewed the five main Tuvan dishes from national local products through the prism of modern Siberian cuisine.
The offer opens with huuzhurs – Tuvan chebureks – which are prepared with a filling of deer and lamb fat in a sauce on kuruta – the Tuvan national dry dairy product produced from natural cow’s milk.
Siberian dumplings with yak meat are filled with broth based on Tuvan green tea – suttug shai. At the end, a jukola from the heart of a ram is rubbed on the dumplings.
Sogazha is another national Tuvan dish. This is the liver that Tuvans fry in a lamb net. In “Tunguska” sogazhu is made from pickled lamb liver on coals and served with meat jujube, yogurt mousse and juicy herbs for freshness.
From one of the main local products of the republic – yak – the meat of which is supplied to the restaurant from the Bai-Taiga district of Tyva, they make a tender terrine with young carrots, mustard mousse and mutton beetle.
For dessert, a mousse of Tuvan sea buckthorn is offered – a favorite berry of the nomadic people – with miso caramel, millet popcorn and ice cream made of chakka cheese. In another way, it is also called suzma. It is sprinkled with gold leaf petals – as a symbol of the rich culture of the Tuvan people.
The Russian Creative Week, which took place on November 24 and 25 in Krasnoyarsk, also managed to be marked in “Tunguska”. For this creative event, Nikolai has prepared a special set of three new dishes inspired by the place where he was born and lives: with ringing rivers, high mountains and boundless wild taiga.
The set includes the following three positions:
Yenisei nelma with black caviar from boletus in horseradish sauce with grayling caviar
Pozharskaya quail cutlet with stroganov mousse and fermented carrots
Tiramisu with cream on porcini mushrooms and chocolate sponge cake
Another good news that came with this winter is a large–scale update of the Tunguska menu, which Bobrov presented after his nomination for the title of “Chef of the Siberian Federal District region”. It identified not only novelties based on local Siberian products, but also improved menu hits of previous years, among which the most notable ones can be distinguished:
Baked peppers with nut crunch, homemade strachatella and tonatto on tugun
Beef roast beef with baked peppers and truffle tonatto on tugun
Dumplings-kundums with boroviki and potatoes, whipped sour cream and demiglas on wild mushrooms
Grilled deer fillet with truffle beetle and cauliflower porridge with ryazhenka
Low-fried roe deer loin with mushroom demiglas, broccoli and potato dumplings
Taimyr deer tongue with smoked pumpkin cream and zhu sauce
On “sweet” we left a story about the most ambitious and creative set of Nikolai Bobrov – the tasting set “Evolution of the Siberian table” – which the chef, together with the Tunguska team, developed for 6 months.
This set is a metaphor for time travel, telling about the changes in gastronomic traditions that took place on the territory of Yenisei Siberia under the influence of various factors: from the emergence of stone processing technologies and the taming of fire to contacts with other civilizations.
Especially for the set, the modern Siberian artist Alexander Blosiak created a painting “The Evolution of the Siberian table”, parts of which are associated with all 9 courses.
Course 1: “Time to collect”
Seth begins his journey from the era of gatherers, when our ancestors ate what grew under their feet, and his first course is presented in the form of sweets. The first – from birch bast – refreshes, the second – from mushrooms and moss – saturates with taste, and the third is torn in the mouth with cranberry bitter, preparing the cavity for new achievements.
Course 2: “At the predatory call”
The second course is a demonstration of chef’s wit. No other dish demonstrates the game of distant hunting better than tartare. But bread is needed for tartarus, and in those days they did not even think about farming. As an alternative, Bobrov created the ghost of future loaves – something crunchy, transparent and almost tasteless. Tartar itself, combining muksun, tugun, grayling and dried moose, intriguingly wags the taste from meat to fish, reflecting the era of prosperity of hunting and fishing.
Course 3: “Fire, follow me”
Slightly cooked venison on horns in clouds of fragrant smoke with a drop of blood-red blackberry barbecue, which is set on fire right in front of the guest. The dish combines Paleolithic game with restaurant sophistication, embodying the very essence of taming fire.
Course 4: “Reap your fruits”
The fourth course immerses the guest in the times of the origin of agriculture. The leitmotif is the natural taste of the products, in all their beauty, but with the use of modern culinary techniques. In this course, cabbage is presented in its four states – it is a “pseudo–meat”, aka a cabbage gratin, a tartine with sauerkraut, a bright green broccoli crunch and also a cabbage barbecue sauce that connects all parts of the dish.
Course 5: “With the east wind”
A dish dedicated to the Asian influence on Siberian cuisine is dim sum with lamb. Protobuuza, protomancer and distant ancestor of dumplings. Juicy lamb in a slightly dense dough is offered to be washed down with a sip of refreshing cooksey broth.
Course 6: “Those who came from the sunset”
The dish is brought with a lid closed, obviously foreshadowing something unexpected. However, the dish opening in front of the guest looks blatantly normal. Something like a pie with the most delicate nelma, tiny vegetable balls and champagne sauce. And there is drama in this normality. Everything that came before is shrouded in the smoke of myth, and everything that comes after is flavored with postmodern sauce. The same course represents the midpoint – the transition point.
Course 7: “Rise up with bonfires, blue nights”
The seventh year mentally takes us back to our Soviet childhood – when we went hiking and took buckwheat and stewed meat with us to cook them over a campfire. The dish is simple, but tasty and bright. Buckwheat is the most popular product of the Soviet era.
So, beef rib languishes in the oven and is served with different textures of buckwheat – stewed with brisket, popcorn, chips. And on top of the porridge is covered with mousse from the same ribs with GOST spices and dill powder. Dill is also on top – fried twigs perfectly imitate the taiga relief.
Course 8: “In our world of illusions”
The eighth course is a dessert pretending to be a canned food, which in turn pretends to be a symbol of wealth and success, being neither one nor the other. In our world, it’s white chocolate, meringue, cloudberry jam and real caviar.
Course 9: “Towards the digital Abyss”
The further into the dark cosmic abyss, the darker Bobrov’s humor. The final postmodern dessert resembles a marble slab on the grave of humanity. A white rectangle of chocolate filled with a jelly-like mass of algae. A light dessert for difficult thoughts.
Culinary creativity of Nikolai Bobrov is one of the most representative examples of how harmoniously and unusually it is possible to combine traditional ethnic values with modern technologies.
Author of the article: Varvara Kartushina
