Summer is the season of various plants and roots that you cannot grow but gather in the field, forest or mountain. And restaurant chefs are actively using it! Here are five places to try dishes made with these seemingly strange and inedible ingredients. To appreciate them!
“Matriushka”
One of the leaders of rare Russian ingredients in Moscow and the country in general is Vlad Piskunov, chef of Matryoshka and researcher of Russian cuisine. For example, he regularly conducts gastronomic sets “Herbarium” – and the month of June is especially dedicated to summer herbs. In general, as Vlad said, nettle, gout, cuff, quinoa can be used similarly to spinach. And from quinoa – also cook cabbage soup and porridge – swan.
On a permanent basis, Matryoshka also has dishes with wild plants. You can try a salad of rapeseed leafy vegetables – they are added to tomatoes, radishes, cabbage, red onions and seeds. Or order Karelian trout with green tomato tapenade and dandelion buds.
Address: Kutuzovsky pr-t, 2/1, building 6
“FOREST.”
Another chef who works closely with various herbs, flowers and roots is Andrei Kolodyazhny. It is no coincidence that he is called nothing more than a gastrobotanist! Therefore, every time you go to the LES restaurant it sponsors, you will always find something wild and unusual. By the end of summer, you may have time to try the seasonal version of veal tartare: Andrey adds marinated dandelion buds. Or get a salad from a young zucchini with crabmeat and gutweed – a superfood known since the days of Ancient Russia. Well, or consider a diced watermelon and cheese salad with daffodils.
Address: Tverskoy Boulevard, 9
“Beluga”
Yevgeny Vikentiev, the chef of the restaurant who made a dessert from it, tells more about the slug: “The slug was common in Russia in the post-war period: it was used to make soups and stews in canteens.” Eugene decided to turn this herb into a delicacy and made sherbet from it, fortified with rhubarb, malt paste, sour cream, and white chocolate mousse. It turned out delicious! Already in the set of the famous “Theory of new tastes” you can try the dish “Dwarf, rhubarb, sour cream, malt”.
And get “Pocket mushroom cheesecake, cocoa and koji sauce, crispy reindeer kelp” on the main menu – this dessert has a very forest flavor.
Address: st. Mokhovaya, 15/1, building 1
To touch
The young and creative chef of the Nikita Kuzmenko restaurant loves to experiment: he ferments a lot, collects weeds and berries, and even raises bees! That’s why Touch, which describes itself as “the restaurant of the Russian cuisine you can’t even imagine”, has many unusual positions with wild plants.
For example, take halibut cooked in papilot in lemon oil: served with cauliflower, cashews sour cream and pickles – herbs that grow in salty soil – sea fennel and salicornia. Instead of lemonade, take a Baikal drink. For this, the “Wormwood Coke Plant” plant, which has a very strong Coca-Cola smell and taste, is used. At the same time John’s wort, fir needles and licorice root. Combined with kefir and yuzu, this mixture is very reminiscent of the Russian drink Baikal. Finally, try the needles and hazelnut dessert: chocolate ganache is baked inside, on cream infused with straw or even spruce oil. It is also fumigated with hemp tea. Inside – layers of salted caramel from porcini mushrooms. Well, the bottom layer is boiled condensed milk and nuts.
Address: Sadovnicheskaya emb., 7
Bjorn
A Scandinavian restaurant that hosts Wild Dinners and promotes locality, seasonality and the connection between man and nature, this is a place where you can find many great ingredients in the dishes. For example, Karelian trout is served with wild berries and rabbit cabbage, fried reindeer kelp with reindeer tartare. Cucumber soup is cooked with borage and icegrass, steamed muksun in nettle and sable fish in seagrass. In general, you should definitely go to Bjorn to discover new tastes.
Address: Pyatnitskaya street, ¾, building 1
Source: People Talk
