You want to preserve centuries of experience, and breathe modern meanings into the familiar look. You invest more so that guests can admire the restored marble columns and brass railings, but have a new menu in mind. You sign up for a two-year restoration of a fragment of a historic building, study books that say about this place so that not a single detail, which is 115 years old, is damaged. And when the missing vase from the famous ceramic workshop of the patron and industrialist Savva Mamontov is found and stands in its rightful place - on the chef's table, you rejoice like a child.
View this post on Instagram
Publication from SAVV (@ savva.restaurant)
Yes, yes, I'm talking about the Savva restaurant, which has been reopened in the Metropol hotel.
The spirit of Savva the Magnificent, as his contemporaries called him by analogy with Lorenzo Medici, definitely hovers in the restaurant.
Despite bankruptcy and prison at the end of the 19th century, five years later, in 1905, Mamontov built the Metropol. In modern terms, a multifunctional complex with a hotel, shops and a restaurant. There was even a skating rink in the plans! Now you understand me when I am talking about double challenge.
The restoration work does not cancel the new menu with precisely those ingredients that, firstly, are relevant, and secondly, fit into the overall picture. Chef Andrey Shmakov invented eight set menus (from modern Russian cuisine with buckwheat pancakes to Baltic cuisine with frozen salmon and a trace of burnt salmon).
View this post on Instagram
Publication from SAVV (@ savva.restaurant)
But a restaurant will not acquire a face until it acquires its own newest history. The chef's table format is perfect for this. Even 20 years ago, any chef's table in the world was a simple dining table in the kitchen of a restaurant, at which people gathered at the invitation of the main person of the institution (although guests were not allowed to go around the kitchen). At Savv we have placed the chef's table in the open space of the second floor, and Andrey already knows what he will cook with VIP guests. By a happy coincidence, Shmakov is also an excellent storyteller (for the most part, the chefs are very private people).
View this post on Instagram
Publication from SAVV (@ savva.restaurant)
I suppose that by offering the guests the tincture "shmakovka", he will tell my favorite story. Once friends gave Andrey a bottle of this tincture. "Where did you order this label?" - asked the moved Shmakov, confident that the bottle was made for him. It turned out that shmakovka has been cooked in the Lithuanian Daugavpils for 200 years. Shmakov found out the recipe and now insists on it.
Photo: Instagram
Related materials
- Dilyara Makarova: "To be eco-friendly only sounds expensive"
- Dilyara Makarova: “Do you want to support your favorite restaurant? Order delivery by its forces "
- Dilyara Makarova: "It's open about what used to be of interest only to professionals"
- Restaurant menu tricks that make you overpay and overeat (and how not to fall for them)