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| Moscow Guide 2007-09-15 01:19:44 |
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Host with The Most
07.06.2007 By Claire Auerbach
Rating (1–10)
Decor: 10 Service: 9 Cuisine: 7
It happens every so often that you fall in love with a restaurant. It can be an enduring love forged through many years of living side by side, a cynical relationship of convenience, or a wild passion that dies out as quickly as it was kindled. Or it could be love at first sight.
Lord save me from overused cliches, but that’s how things began between me and The Most, the ultra-posh new spot opened by restaurateur Alexander Mamut; just one glance at a photograph of the interior, and I was smitten in a big way. But would this love be the forever kind, or was The Most going to let me down like so many others have in the past?
Club-goers will recognize The Most’s address as the onetime location of Most, a nightspot that once drew hordes of the city’s Gilded Youth eager to prove themselves by making it past the draconian face control. Nothing remains of the former establishment except for the name, which was presumably retained for its superlative qualities in English as well as for connoting the restaurant’s Kuznetsky Most location. Through a rather nondescript door, down a dark hallway, past a cloakroom attendant who handles your coat like it’s the Shroud of Turin, a turn to the right, and suddenly, you’re gasping for breath because you’ve just glimpsed the most beautiful dining hall in the entire city.
The design scheme recalls the architecture of the early 20th century’s belle epoch – think plenty of cream tones punctuated by flashes of crimson, heavy curtains, fancy chandeliers, moldings and cartouches, the type of place where it’s easy to imagine top hat-wearing gents entertaining tittering ladies in puffy-sleeved dresses. There’s also a smaller, rustically decked out second hall that calls to mind the cozy study of some countrified French nobleman – quite an impressive room in its own right. Even the bathrooms, appointed in dark wood and brick, can be appreciated as minor works of art.
 The menu, developed by head chef Eric Le Provos (formerly head chef and part owner of Carre Blanc), is divided into two sections, labeled Classique and Creatif. The former is the domain of old school faves like steak tartar (820 rubles) and filet of sole stuffed with chanterelle and tomatoes (1,500 rubles), the latter features more adventurous offerings, for instance, cod filet with coconut sauce and coriander (1,000 rubles).
My dining partner and I seated ourselves in a cozy nook by the window and placed our order; my companion, a more adventurous sort than I happen to be, going mostly with the Creatif, while stodgy old me stuck with Classique. Our salads arrived within minutes. My seafood salad (550 rubles) was presented well enough, with thinly sliced peppers and pickles framing a pile of what looked like some type of mollusk in cream, but disappointment set in after only a few bites – nothing on my plate seemed to have any flavor, with the exception of a caviar-covered biscuit that came on the side. My partner, however, went wild over her celery and mango salad (470 rubles), which included chips of beets and lettuce; also visually appealing, but possessing a refreshingly tangy flavor. The next course brought more of the same for each of us – my cream of asparagus soup (350 rubles) needed about half a shaker of pepper to come alive, but across the table, my companion happily munched her mushroom cassoulet (800 rubles). “These are the best mushrooms I’ve had in a long time,” she proclaimed as I grumbled in my napkin.
The letdown was palpable – it was I who had fallen in love with this restaurant merely from gazing at the picture, why was she getting all the good dishes? Would the main course prove to be a disappointment as well? Along came my veal steak (2,200 rubles) to provide an answer. This was one heroic steak, three fingers thick, surrounded by a crispy ring of fat and bathed in tangy citron sauce. But would it live up to its equally heroic price? Of course not – because no steak that’s not made from Kobe beef can justify a $90 price tag, even a 500-gram monstrosity like this one! However, it was still delicious – every bite literally exploding with juices, the meat itself melt-in-your-mouth tender. It didn’t quite redeem the two preceding dishes, but the light and piquant veal kidneys in juniper sauce (950 rubles) that I’d ordered on a lark and almost forgotten about did. Predictably, my friend had no problems whatsoever with her pike filet (790 rubles).
We finished off with a scoop of lemon sorbet on a bed of berries (1,100 rubles) – delicious but wildly overpriced, and a flawless Caribbean chocolate mousse cake (320 rubles). I’m happy to report that by the end of the meal, both of us were stuffed to the point of immobility like the hopeless gluttons that we were.
Does the love affair continue? Sure it does, even though The Most has shown herself to be an occasionally fickle mistress. A couple of dishes needed some spicing and some others were a bit on the expensive side, but the service was perfect, the food redeemed itself in the end, and of course, there’s the gorgeous interior design. I’ll be back, and not only for dinner; The Most has a highly praised breakfast menu (weekdays from 8:30am-11am, weekends from 11am-3pm) that is just calling my name.
The Most
6/3 Kuznetsky Most, 660-0706, Mon.-Fri. 8am-11pm. Weekends 11am-last guest.
M. Kuznetsky Most.
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