Michelin now ranks Moscow’s restaurants. It’s seen as a win for Putin’s food import bans.
By Isabelle Khurshudyan,
Twins Garden
MOSCOW — When twin brothers Ivan and Sergey Berezutskiy were starting as chefs, they knew all about Spain’s dry-cured ham and France’s cheeses. What they didn’t know was anything about what their native Russia had to offer.
Restaurant menus in Moscow were full of imports such as beef from Australia or chicken from the United States. Then came President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 ban on food and agricultural imports from countries that issued sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and suspected support for pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The ban technically lives on — albeit with avenues to bypass it. Many chefs just prefer not to look abroad after rediscovering how to go local for their dishes.
“It was a bit shameful because Russia is the biggest country in the world and has a huge number of climatic zones and therefore should have a huge range of products,” Ivan Berezutskiy said. “Why did we know more about Italian products than our own?”
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The unexpected boom in Russian-sourced cuisine from Putin’s boycott received a further boost Thursday with the release of the first Michelin Guide to Moscow restaurants — and the coveted stars that go along with it.
The guide will list 69 restaurants. Seven received a one-star nod, while two took two stars, including the Berezutskiy brothers’ Twins Garden. Twins Garden was also recognized with a “green star,” awarded to restaurants that operate sustainably.
In announcing the dining guide for Moscow, Michelin praised a culinary scene “embodied by talented chefs who are devoted to highlighting the quality of local products such as Vladivostok king crab, Borodinsky bread, halibut from Murmansk, and smetana, the sour cream used in preparing beef stroganoff.”
Restaurateurs, chefs and diners alike have realized that “fresh fish from Russia is better than dorado that was brought to Russia after traveling for a week,” Berezutskiy said.
“The breaking point happened when the consumer began to understand our own produce is just as tasty as imported things,” he added.
When Putin introduced the ban, Russian imports of U.S. agricultural products totaled about $1 billion a year. From the European Union, the figure was $15.8 billion in 2013.
Russian state television at the time featured images of tanks running over contraband cheese and Danish pork being thrown into the incinerator. Local dairy farmers started making their own takes on European cheeses. Russian cheesemakers have had more success with soft varieties such as mozzarella and burrata, but it’s still hard to get good aged cheese in Russia, food critic Mikhail Kostin said.
Acquiring forbidden fruit is fairly painless now. Neighboring Belarus is often used as a transit zone for European goods. Travelers also can return from Europe with food products in their suitcase.
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But the Berezutskiys, who opened their first restaurant the same year as the food import ban, have designed the Twins Garden concept around ingredients that come from their farm outside Moscow. The menu offers a tasting course with dishes to represent different Russian regions — from the seafood-rich Far East to the mountainous Altai in Siberia.
Vladimir Mukhin, the chef at Moscow’s White Rabbit restaurant that was a “one star” honoree Thursday, has also gained acclaim by using lesser-known local ingredients to create elevated Russian cuisine.
“I travel a lot in Russia, and in every region. I’m in search of traditional dishes and am learning about new foods,” Mukhin said. “And then I try to teach our guests about them. I’m telling the history of our country with the help of cooking.”
Arkadiy Novikov, a restaurateur with more than 50 eateries just in the Moscow region, said the food import ban isn’t solely responsible for the rise of the city’s dining scene. He credited a new generation of ambitious chefs and the development of Russian farms, too.
But “of course the sanctions played an important role,” said Novikov, whose Artest restaurant was the other two-star selection.
The Berezutskiys disagree. If Russian ingredients tasted worse, then people would just pay more to get what they want imported through loopholes, they said.
“There are stereotypes that Russia doesn’t have good-quality products,” Ivan Berezutskiy said. “Maybe back in the days we did not have that, but today Moscow has it all.”
Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.
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