freshness and light
Cut the cloak according to the cloth! Gourmet cuisine, stolovaya prices and a tasteful interior make Bolshaya Gruzinskaya’s Botanika almost too good to tell the public. On further thought, bypass this article, so we don’t have to share the riches.
PHOTO GEORGI IVANOV/ TEXT FRANCIS MERSON feedback
Most restaurants first go about choosing a menu, then try to work out how to bring the necessary ingredients into Russia, a process that involves bribing customs officials to ensure that snap-frozen shark fins, organic quail eggs and other such gastronomic contraband are imported safe and sound. At the end of the day, this whole rigmarole is paid for by the diner, who forks out exorbitant sums for provender acquired at such painful expense. In putting together the menu for Botanika, chef Alexander Kurenkov has followed the opposite route. First, you determine what high-grade ingredients are available locally, then build a culinary repertoire around them — in other words, you cut your cloak according to your cloth. This approach is not only thrifty, it also takes the onus off the suppliers and places it back firmly on the chef, who must use his creativity and resourcefulness to make much from little. At Botanika, elements from various culinary traditions all dovetailed into an undogmatic Asian-fusion style, where the accent is on freshness, high-quality ingredients and once again — freshness. The very entrance to the cafe seems to emanate fresh air, with its vast windows facing onto Bolshaya Gruzinskaya and a faux-rustic wooden sign which looks all the more inviting against a backdrop of bleak podyezdy. The first surprise of the evening was when the front door closed behind us and my lady friend and I were suddenly alone in a strange cul-de-sac of a vestibule, surrounded by three closed doors. I felt like I was in a game show: pick the right door and you get the new car, pick the wrong one and you get the bus tour to Uglich. Then the door to the left burst open, and our hostess Yelena appeared in an aureole of light, which was streaming in from the spacious dining room. As we were led to our seats, I observed that the cafe is split into two separate territories: ours was decorated in subdued olive tones, while the other was adorned with about five different kinds of Victorian wallpaper, all in the same tones of pale green and grey. The effect is of a colonial parlor in old Siam, an impression which is complemented by the bent wood chairs and a profusion of teak screens. For an entree I opted for the teriyaki chicken and lettuce salad with peanut sauce (210 rubles), a mound of succulent chicken breast, slivers of crackling pastry and lettuce leaves exploding with nutty flavor. But the presentation of the dish was enough to garner my sympathy. The combination of nouveau-cuisine verticality and voluptuously-curved Asian crockery made the salad look exquisite without being so dainty as to make me feel like a barbarian for despoiling it with my fork. On Yelena’s recommendation, my fair companion ordered the smoked eel and chicken salad with layered omelet in olive-caramel sauce (220 rubles), packed with contrast between the incisive smokiness of the eel and the sweetness of the caramel. The Argentinean Crios de Susan Balbo 2002 was one of the four reds on the wine list (none of which were French) and, at 870 rubles a bottle, I wasn’t expecting anything special. But the Crios turned out to be a gem – syrupy and warm, with masses of fruit, a spicy nose and fine acidity. Our mains came hot on the heels of the entrees, and my roast duck with egg noodles and mango was the highlight of the evening, with slices of duck bursting with moisture and noodles perfectly firm. My comrade’s grilled pork with Shitake mushrooms in caramel sauce (190 rubles) was a tad so-whatish — two pork cutlets bedecked with a smattering of mushrooms and dollop of sauce. But she was delighted with the dish, lauding its simplicity. We were given strict orders by the manager to try a serving of the deep fried spring rolls with Shitake mushrooms (190 rubles), which were crackly on the outside, not the least bit oily, and packed with crunchy vegetables and Shitake. By this time, we were well through the Crios, which got better the more of it we drank, and the idea of pudding had faded from our minds. The dramatic entrance of the sweet marzipan rolls (120 rubles) aroused us from our stupor. The presentation is spectacular to say the least: the whole thing looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, with the pasty white of the marzipan set against the radioactive green of the kiwi and the bright orange mango. This witty dish sums up the whole Botanika ethos, and is destined to become the restaurant’s trademark — strips of marzipan are transformed into rolls a la sushi, which are stuffed with chunks of kiwi, mango and apple, all trickled with a tangy kiwi coulis. We had clearly reached the culinary climax of the evening, and the homemade blackberry cheesecake (145 rubles) was a much needed tranquilizer to cushion our comedown, with its creamy curd cheese and dacha-fresh glazed blackberries. This was top-class dining, at a place which is modest enough to call itself a cafe. Even though the chefs at Botanika have cut corners on their grocery bills, the prices at the cafe are almost suspiciously low — you could probably spend more on an evening at Yolki-Palki. There is not a single dish over 300 rubles, and the voluminous menu is packed with pearls of originality that will have you planning a return visit before you have even left. Like the avocado milk shake with cane sugar and raspberry syrup (130 rubles), or the rice spring rolls with crab, greens and coriander (200 rubles). It all seems too good to be true, and you are left assuming that their pricing policy is a marketing ploy designed to attract customers, after which they will hike the prices back up to normal Moscow levels. But if they continue in the same vein, pretty soon you won’t be able to get a table there for love or money. One thing we can hope for is that the moderate prices will ward off the brassy minigarchs whose main objective is to blow $2,000 on dinner. Botanika is a joint for the real gourmets who know the difference between high prices and haute cuisine. |
