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Moscow Guide
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Quarterly seasonal full color guide on cultural and VIP events, including restaurant guide. Contains information about dining, fashion, social and cultural events. |
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| Moscow Guide 2010-03-12 19:04:01 |
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The Fishmongers of Moscow
16.10.2008 By Stas Shectman
Whether its a sweltering summer’s day or frigid winter’s night, inside the temperature-controlled La Maree warehouse the air is always cool, crisp and tinged with the briny scent of the ocean. Live sterlet and dorado churn about in white plastic tubs. Lobster and crayfish of various sizes congregate in the corners of a wall-length tank. Workers in blue overalls and rubber boots pack Styrofoam boxes with ice and fish and load them onto a convoy of refrigerated trucks. Twenty-four hours ago some of these fish were swimming in oceans as far away as the coast of Australia and North America. By the end of the day, some of them will be grilled and served with a lemon wedge at one of Moscow’s high-end seafood restaurants.
Few things reflect just how far Moscow’s culinary scene has come in the past the decade — and how far it still has to go — as much as the growth of the city’s seafood segment. Forget the places that peddle dubious facsimiles of sushi. I’m talking about fresh seafood — aquariums offering live lobster, crab and turbot, ice-beds spread with chilled salmon, sea bass and dorado; places where a surprise inspection of the kitchen freezer would find no fish.
“If you had told me 11 years ago that I would have a seafood restaurant [in Moscow] with no fish in its freezers, I would never have believed you,” laughs Yankel Schein, concept chef for the Filimonova i Yankel chain of fish houses. Schien, who first came to Moscow to head the kitchens of the Yapona Mama restaurant chain in the mid-1990s, can only express amazement at how much things have changed. “It’s a completely different world, like another century.”
“The fish trend is relatively young,” explains Oksana Eremenko, commercial director for La Maree, which is the largest importer and supplier of seafood to Russia’s hotel and restaurant industry. “Five years ago trout, salmon and sturgeon were pretty much the only fish in stores, the fish that people were familiar with in the Soviet Union. Right about 2004, the market started developing very actively with the growth of restaurants that focused specifically on fish.”
Russia has, indeed, developed a taste for the seas. In 2007, for example, Russia imported $1.7 billion in fish and seafood products, a 44 percent increase from 2006, according to Russia’s Federal Customs Service. For its share, La Maree imports an estimated 15 tons a week of live and chilled seafood, flown in from France, Tunisia, Morocco, Australia, Norway, the United States and Spain, just to name a few.
Yet, for all the oceanic bounty flowing into Moscow and, increasingly, the rest of Russia, there are still kinks that need working out. Although import tariffs on seafood are relatively lower on meat, which, according to Eremenko, can sometimes reach up to 60 percent, flying in fresh fish is neither cheap nor easy. Customs duties and transport costs aside, corrupt and inept customs officials also contribute to the relatively high cost of a seafood dinner.
“With live cargos of fish, a 10 percent mortality rate is considered good,” explains Eremenko. “But here, because of problems with customs, agents who don’t always know what they’re doing, airport logistics — things that have nothing to do with us — we often have a very large mortality rate. Sometimes we have an entire shipment die while it’s still on the plane.”
Getting Fresh
Still, the seafood situation in Moscow has certainly come a long way since those Soviet days satirized in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” where the buffet manager attempts to defend his “sturgeon of the second freshness.”
So how do you know that the fish on your plate isn’t the week-old product of clever word play? In terms of freshness, a restaurant where guests can choose their entrees from an aquarium is a pretty good bet. A display case of fish laid out on a bed of ice goes a long way, too, but even then knowing the telltale signs of lower orders of freshness can’t be beat. The first hint — the truth is in the eyes. The eyes of a fresh fish should be clear, almost as if it was still alive. If the eyes are cloudy and murky, it may be a sign that the fish is nearing its expiration date. The smell test is important, too. Contrary to what you may think, fresh fish doesn’t smell. It may carry a hint of salty ocean, but it shouldn’t smell fishy. Check behind gills. With most fish the flesh behind the gills will be red. Grayness behind the gills is a sign of aging. Poke it. The flesh should be firm and resilient. If your finger leaves a lasting dent, you should have lasting doubts. Chefs with years of experience also have their own secrets for determining not only freshness, but also whether a fish has been properly chilled, frozen and stored.
Konstantin Ivlev, executive chef of the Sheraton Palace Hotel Moscow and La Voile Restaurant, explains that when it comes to chilled or frozen fish, “there’s no contest.” Chilled is always better, but sometimes frozen — flash freezing is preferable — is unavoidable, and for fattier fish, not necessarily a mortal sin. In that case, the way a fish is thawed is important. “A good cook will leave it to thaw naturally over 12 hours so that it doesn’t lose its healthy elements,” explains Ivlev. “A bad cook will use a microwave or thaw it with hot water, which destroys the protein. You can tell when you eat it. The flesh doesn’t flake off as easily. It has a different quality.”
Although the buyer should always beware, any restaurant and chef worth your money and digestion will take their responsibilities toward the consumer seriously. The job of a chef is not only knowing how to select and prepare the ingredients he works with, but knowing how to properly order them, too.
“A cook needs to understand and know how much [fish] he’s going to use so that what is in the restaurant is always fresh,” explains Ivlev.
Schein, too, emphases the importance of doing one’s math. “If you only sell 10 fish a day, you can’t order 11 or you’ll have leftovers; that won’t be fresh. For me, if I run out of something, that’s a sign I’m doing something right. It shows that all my stock is fresh.”
Catch of the Day
While there’s no shortage of restaurants with fish on the menu, the ones with fish chilling on ice and swimming in aquariums deserve special attention. Fortunately, Moscow now has a handful of (mostly high-end) places where sea-foodies can satisfy their marine cravings. La Maree restaurant is without a doubt one of those places, if for no other reason than its unhindered access to the bounty of the La Maree warehouse. Headed by Tunisian chef Abdessatar Zituni, the restaurant boasts some of the freshest and most diverse selection of seafood in the city. Head over to the separate boutique, which is set with beds of crushed ice and aquariums displaying the day’s offerings, and choose your dinner. Then take a seat in the elegant, Mediterranean-inspired dining room and choose the cooking method — grilled, steamed, smoked, baked or the restaurant’s specialty, a la plancha, a Spanish-style preparation over a flat metal range.
Veteran restaurant Sirena is the granddaddy of them all, a piece of culinary history as Moscow’s first seafood restaurant. Opened by the city’s most prolific restaurateur, Arkady Novikov, in 1992, Sirena is in fact one of the city’s first post-Soviet restaurants, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by its continued popularity. Divided into two rooms, with one decked out like a ship cabin with aquariums in the walls and another with an aquarium built into the glass floor, Sirena carries a hint of kitsch. The menu, however, is all style, with a wide selection of fish and crustaceans prepared to your liking and a list of chef Antonio Baratto’s unique seafood creations, which draw on a diverse range of cuisines, from Asian to French to Russian.
When a restaurant receives recommendations from rival chefs, it’s always a good sign. Porto Maltese is one of those restaurants, lauded by those in the know for its consistent focus on substance over style — that is, straightforward cuisine without over-the-top decor. Although it has three branches, the one on Ulitsa Pravdy seems to be the most popular, also with a Mediterranean theme of light wood, sand-colored walls and maritime murals. Fish, from the more usual dorado to rarer shark and skate, dominates the reasonably priced menu, although several meat dishes are available.
Located in the Sheraton Palace, La Voile is a sophisticated and surprisingly cozy and intimate option for fresh fish. Red couches, dark wood and gold accents lend the space an aristocratic air. Ivlev, the restaurant’s new chef, is currently reworking the menu to reflect his own takes on Mediterranean cuisine, but promises to keep the restaurant’s focus on whole fish prepared to order. Ivlev, however, also plans to highlight domestic fish. In a city where restaurants brag about their imported ingredients, fish from Russian rivers and lakes provide variety and, since they require less transport, are often less expensive.
What restaurant Rybnoye Mesto (Fish Place) lacks in the creativity of its name it more than makes up for with the creativity of its menu. Overlooking the Moscow River on the eastern side of the Garden Ring, Rybnoye Mesto has the feel of a chic, stylish beachside cabana — colorful, airy and comfortable. Its menu includes the requisite fish priced per 100 grams, but also features a wide range of original fish dishes that highlight chef Nikolai Nosalyov’s culinary talents. Sauces such as miso with Kenyan beans and sweet-and-sour pineapple pair with salmon and shrimp to push the food here beyond the usual oil-and-lemon dressings.
New on the scene is Barabulka, Russian for red mullet, which appropriately appears in several guises on the menu. Light, bright and colorful, with terracotta and Mediterranean blue walls and earth-toned couches and arm chairs, Barabulka draws inspiration from a range of cuisines and brings in its fish from La Maree two to three times a week. Red mullet ceviche reflects a Spanish influence, while the house carpaccio, a sashimi-like selection of six types of fish, arrives with a Japanese ponzu sauce, a raspberry balsamic sauce and an olive oil and onion sauce. A sleek, black aquarium houses live Canadian lobster, Kamchatka crab and langoustines.
Where these restaurants all pride themselves on allowing guests to choose their own fish, Arkady Novikov’s restaurant Market takes the choose-your-own-entree concept even further. Market boasts displays that feature not only seafood, but an array of baskets overflowing with vegetables that guests can choose to accompany their main course. Eating here is like choosing your dinner from an expensive, well-decorated stall in a Thai market.
As with many of Moscow’s other seafood restaurants, Rybny Bazar’s menu includes a selection of pastas, salads and a few hot starters that feature seafood, but in keeping with the general trend the focus remains on whole fish prepared in the usual ways. Although the restaurant itself is minimally decorated with a classic, antique aesthetic, its list of seafood is anything but modest, featuring fish such as mackerel flown in straight from Australia.
While at these restaurants seafood might come fresh, it doesn’t come cheap. For the most part, it also comes priced per 100 grams. That is, except for at Filimonova i Yankel, a chain of restaurants which bills itself as Moscow’s first “democratically priced fish house.” What does that mean? Well, for starters it means that nearly all of the fish on the menu have a set price, allowing diners to know ahead of time what their dinner weighs and costs. In keeping its catches a more or less standard size, the restaurant is also able to keep prices down, making this chain one of the more affordable seafood places in the city.
Still, some chefs maintain that prices in Moscow aren’t as shocking as they may seem. La Voile’s Ivlev is convinced that the city is on par with other capitals, but is quick to add that quality fish is, by definition, never cheap. “If you come into a restaurant and you see cheap fish, that should raise doubts. Quality costs money.”
Barabulka
56 Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Ul., 254-7444, 11am-11:30pm. M. Belorusskaya.
Filimonova i Yankel
see www.fishhouse.ru for addresses.
La Maree
28/2 Ul. Petrovka, 694-0930, 11am-11pm. M. Chekhovskaya.
La Voile
19 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ul., 771-7940, noon-midnight. M. Belorusskaya.
Market
18 Sadovaya-Samtyochnaya Ul., 650-4131, noon-midnight. M. Tsvetnoi Bulvar.
Porto Maltese
8 Bolshaya Spasskaya Ul., 680-2118, noon-midnight. M. Prospekt Mira.
11 Leninsky Prospekt, 236-4512, noon-midnight. M. Oktyabrskaya.
21 Ul. Pravdy, 739-8249, noon-midnight. M. Belorusskaya.
Rybny Bazar
10/2 Tryokhprudny Per., 650-5444, noon-midnight. M. Tverskaya.
Rybnoe Mesto
1/15 Krasnokholmskaya Nab., 911-1105, noon-midnight. M. Taganskaya.
Sirena
15 Bolshaya Spasskaya Ul., 608-1412, noon-midnight. M. Sukharevskaya.
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