moscow.ru

chef

Moscow continues to reveal its treasures. After a few years in London, Switzerland and Italy, Chef Pierluigi Trotta arrived in Moscow only to fall instantly in love with the city and to bring us all brave gastronomic sensations and very-very strawberry ideas.

My experience shows that being a Chef in a big cosmopolitan city gives you a lot of opportunities to grow professionally, and the tendency for more knowledgeable and highly qualified local, Russian Chefs in Moscow is evident to me. Most restaurants used to have foreign Chefs just a while ago. The situation has changed now — the level of cuisine is increasing along with the quantity of local Chefs who are very passionate about their work and who can well compete with the foreigners. As for the team I’m training and working with here, at the Renaissance — I would take them anywhere in the world with me. I hope to see some of my pupils become Chefs at well-established venues shortly.

What kinds of obstacles, if any, do you face being the Chef of a hotel restaurant?

We are currently working in the best city in Europe business-wise, and we have a lot of clients, but they barely make a group of regulars. They only come back once a year or so, hence the major problem is not having the feedback. Besides, it is quite difficult for a hotel restaurant to attract local customers because there is plenty on offer downtown. Still our Sunday brunches are very popular with our Russian clients.

You are going to introduce the strawberry menu for The Summer Garden terrace. Why strawberry and where will the berries come from?

Yes, we are going to do the strawberry dessert menu in mid May. We often do seasonal menu and when strawberry is in season everybody goes for it no one ever misses out on strawberry: it is romantic and healthy and it just puts you in a good mood. All our berries, strawberry included, come from Russia. We use very good providers, so we do not have to worry about fertilizers and we are sure of the quality. We tend to change the menu seasonally and try to work more into seasonal products that are local.

Will you only do the dessert menu with strawberry or will there be other dishes with the berry in them?

We will resort to the dessert menu: we have previously tried white rice strawberry risotto and strawberry salad with balsamic vinegar, and the customers didn’t respond very well to it. I suppose it was probably too early to experiment back then; in Moscow you have to introduce new things wisely and carefully, getting the timing perfectly right, then you get a great feed back, and that gives you double pleasure.

Maslenitsa Bliny

Tom Yum Soup

avocado tartare and crab

Trapani Fish Couscous