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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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Where Gourmands Go to Shop
10.06.2008 By Stas Shectman
In Moscow, culinary enlightenment rarely comes cheap, but thanks to a handful of gourmet grocery stores, it doesn’t necessarily have to come with surly waiters. So cancel your dinner reservations, because tonight you’re eating in. Chances are the menu at that swanky new restaurant won’t have much that can’t be found at one of Moscow’s specialty food stores and boutiques, anyway. Foie gras? Oui. Truffles? Black and white. Oysters and Kamchatka crab? Flown in fresh. Throw in the occasional free samples and historic decor, and suddenly shopping for food in Moscow seems more like a hobby than a chore.
“Russians appreciate food and eating very much,” says restaurant critic Sergei Chernovik, who recently published the first Russian translation of the authoritative French culinary encyclopedia La Russe Gastronomique. “That’s why they’re ready to spend good money on discovering new kinds of food and getting pleasure from eating. The gourmet grocery stores and boutiques in Moscow provide people here with important opportunities to learn about quality products.”
According to a report written by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Moscow Office in 2007, Russians now spend more of their income on food than any other country in Europe. While some of those expenses are eaten up by rising food costs, in cities like Moscow they also reflect a growing appetite for global tastes. Russian Newsweek certainly noticed the change when in 2007 it wrote about the growing trend of “wowing” guests with gourmet homecooked meals. The magazine referred to it as “the new Moscow chic.”
Yet, while some Muscovites may be ready to pay for products of distinction, or for the distinction of buying expensive products, not everyone is impressed.
“Of course, these stores make important contributions to the city’s culinary culture,” says Marianna Orlinkova, editor of Gastronom magazine. “And sometimes I go to Globus Gourmet to buy something special that I can’t get anywhere else. But in general I prefer markets and more personalized interactions. I don’t think the prices in these stores are justified. It just plays into people’s desire to show off.”Whether you’re eating to impress, craving novelty, or just seeking a special treat, Moscow has enough gourmet groceries and gastronomic boutiques to satisfy your epicurian aspirations.
Grocery Nostalgia
Shopping for food in Moscow can sometimes feel like stepping into the past. Usually, these time warps come in the form of corner produkty stores, with their Soviet-era system of separate checks and registers for different products. Rarer are the more pleasant versions of history, such as Yeliseyevsky Gastronom. Located in the heart of the city, Yeliseyevsky is as much a tourist attraction as it is a grocery store. Built in the beginning of the 1900s by the Yeliseyevs, a family of wine merchants, the store was recently restored to its pre-Revolutionary grandeur. Massive chandeliers hang from an elaborately carved vaulted ceiling and illuminate the store’s displays of local and imported food. In the center stands an island of fresh seafood and meat, cheeses and a cornucopia of prepared foods. A separate section in the back houses a wide assortment of local and imported wines and liquors. Although the store offers few items that aren’t available elsewhere at lower prices, Yeliseyevsky is the place to go for culinary souvenirs. Look for the shelves lined with Russian candy, such as the lacquered wooden boxes of chocolates painted with pictures of churches and idyllic nature scenes (324-664 rubles), all worthy of being given as gifts.
The newest gem in the capital’s culinary crown is Gastronom No. 1, a resurrected version of a historic market that closed in the beginning of the 1980s. Located in the GUM shopping center on Red Square, the current version was rebuilt on the basis of archival photographs. Marble floors, art-deco lamps and salespeople in quaint white aprons and hats lend the space a nostalgic feel, while aquariums of live fish, sushi made to order, French cheeses and imported tropical fruit appeal to contemporary appetites. Here you’ll find a well-stocked coffee counter with a wide assortment of beans that can be ground to specification, including the rare Kopi Luwak (3,042 rubles per 100 grams), an Indonesian bean that gets its special flavor by being eaten, partly digested and excreted by the palm civet, a weasel-like animal. For more nostalgic tastes, Gastronom No. 1’s owners have managed to stock the shelves with a selection of goodies reminiscent of the Soviet-era. These are mostly of the canned and jarred variety, such as sprats, mackerel, smoked pork and beef, and pickled local mushrooms (329-595 rubles), but also include locally produced honeys, flavored lemonades (35 rubles) and juices such as plum, cherry, and birch (131 rubles for 3 liters). The most charming touch is the soda fountain, where you can order gazirovky, flavored sodas that were popular in the Soviet Union. For 20-30 rubles you can choose a shot of fruit- or herb-flavored syrup that gets a spray of soda water, making a sweet and sparkling refreshment.
Global Gourmets
Over the past several years, eating well in Moscow has certainly become easier, if not less expensive. In 2005, the city received a culinary boost in the form of Globus Gourmet, a chain of up-scale grocery stores opened by restaurant tsar Arkady Novikov. Although Novikov eventually pulled out of the company, the chain continues to prosper by providing Muscovites with comestibles not easily found in more pedestrian stores. As with its competitors, Globus Gourmet does a brisk trade in prepared foods, fresh baked breads, designer pastries and imported cheeses. In the meat section, sales clerks stand ready to slice slivers of aged proscuitto and jamon straight off the haunch (510-1,527 rubles per 100 grams). Produce is pricey but fresh and includes barrels of dried fruits and nuts available by the 100-grams. A separate section has a wide selection of Greek, Italian and Spanish olives, a welcome touch in a city where most stores stock only cans of green or black. If you’re feeling lazy, the prepared foods section offers delicious wheels of homemade pizzas with a variety of toppings (220-350 rubles).
For more specialized tastes, Moscow is home to a number of boutiques with fairly specific focuses. Dymov No. 1 is a chain of mid-range beer restaurants opened by Novikov and Vadim Dymov. If the latter name rings a bell, that’s because Dymov is the sausage king of Moscow, with a line of gourmet deli meats under his name. The first outlet in the chain, located across the river from the Kremlin, boasts a delicatessen in its foyer dedicated to all things Dymov. Stop in for one of Dymov’s handmade Felino sausages imported from Italy (1,160 rubles per kilogram) or a bottle of infused liqueurs specially made for the restaurant (cranberry, horseradish, pepper or cedar, 1,650 rubles).
La Maree is a Mecca for seafood lovers. Annexed to the high-end seafood restaurant of the same name, this boutique features some of the freshest catches in the city. The store’s icy beds of oceanic bounty run the gamut of inscrutably named oysters (about 100-185 rubles each), whole fish and oddly shaped mollusks. While La Maree has no monopoly on fresh seafood in the city, the tiny space distinguishes itself by offering an exquisite selection of cold pressed extra-virgin and truffle olive oils (380-2,650 rubles), aged balsamic vinegars, sea salts and similar seafood accoutrements.
Francophiles with expendable incomes will find plenty of ways to indulge their fetish at Hediard, an homage to France’s hegemony over all things culinary. The boutique exudes refinement, from the dark wood shelves lined with Hediard-brand products to the chic little cafe that serves light meals and desserts. There’s little need to cook like a Michelin-star chef when you can purchase cans of Hediard foie gras (1,040 rubles) and canard a l’orange (890 rubles), tropical fruit-infused vinegars (518-500 rubles) and olive pastes and tapenades (217-310 rubles).
A long stretch of glass-lined bar displays pastries, desserts and a variety of candied fruits that epitomize the image of sugary decadence. If you care enough to give the very best, step into the back room lined with Hediard jams, jellies and marmalades (250-450 rubles), striking in its 19th-century colonial color scheme of fire-engine red and black, or choose one of the ready-made gift baskets (8,268-15,306 rubles).
While luxury living has garnered a strong following among Muscovites, healthy eating is only beginning to come into vogue. Perhaps that’s why the “eco-supermarket” Grünwald is located outside the smoggy circle of the MKAD on Rublevskoe Shosse. In contrast to the crunchy ethnic aesthetic of health food and vegetarian stores like Dzagannat and Put K Sebe, Grünwald sees no reason to divorce wealth from health. This is the place to fill all your up-scale organic needs, from dairy products, coffees and teas to cosmetics and household cleaners. If you’re looking for advice on healthy eating, the chefs and nutritional experts at Grünwald offer knowledge, too.
For his part, however, Chernovik doesn’t believe these stores cater only to wealthy clientele.
“People here aren’t stupid,” he says. “I often see people who aren’t rich by any means in these stores and they’re buying just a loaf of bread or a small bag of salt or something, just to try something different. Sure, the prices don’t always match the quality, but the biggest problem is that it’s almost impossible to open a small store with quality products at reasonable prices here in Moscow. For me, that’s the real tragedy.”
Dymov No. 1
34 Sofiiskaya Nab., 951-7571, noon-8pm (deli), noon-11:30pm (restaurant).
M. Novokuznetskaya.
Yeliseyevsky Gastronom
14 Tverskaya Ul., 650-4643, 24 hours.
M. Tverskaya.
Gastronom No. 1
3 Red Square (1st floor, GUM shopping center), 788-4343, 10am-10pm. M. Ploshchad Revolutsii.
Globus Gourmet
Multiple locations, 221-6671, 24 hours.
stk-retail.ru
Grünwald
30/1 Rublevskoe Shosse, 413-0565, 10am-11pm. M. Molodyozhnaya.
Hediard
7 Sadovaya Kudrinskaya Ul., 254-5394, 10am-11pm. M. Barrikadnaya.
La Maree
28 Petrovka Ul., 694-0930, 11am-11pm.
M. Chekhovskaya.
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