Gourmet everyday life – Style

Pearl of Khamovniki

Restaurant life is in full swing in Khamovniki, but unlike Patriki, establishments with more understandable classical concepts are opening here, with a few splashes of original cuisine. This is how Stay became, which was opened by the Korean chef Sang Keun Ooh, who is firmly established in Moscow and is already known to the public from the Japanese restaurant Hibiki. Stay is adjacent to Hibiki, but their concepts are different. The new restaurant focuses on Mediterranean cuisine and fresh seafood. There is not a hint of Asia on the menu, despite the chef’s origins. On the contrary, Sang Keun Ouh shows how comfortable he is not only with Asian cuisine, but also with classic European menus. It is not for nothing that he has extensive experience working, in particular, at the L’Etranger restaurant in London under the strict guidance of the French chef Jerome Tovron, who is considered the master of French elegant food. So, Stay is a two-story restaurant with a cozy, bright, modern and trendy interior.

The first floor is rather intended for a quick breakfast (they are here) or a casual lunch, while the second floor, with white tablecloths, is divided into two rooms. One of the halls can be closed, which turns it into a separate room, suitable for private meetings and celebrations. On the ground floor, guests are greeted by an aquarium showcase with fresh seafood. There are giant crabs, lobsters, shells, fresh scallops. The menu opens with the “Fish Showcase” section, in which the chef presents all the fish diversity. You can order any item from 100 g – octopus, scallop, vongole, sea bass – and cook it to your taste. Sea bass crudo, for example, is served in oil with lemon juice and thin slices of jalapeno pepper. In salads – a vegetable mix with fresh crab and citrus “segments”, elastic crispy vegetables: green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc., with citrus dressing and pieces of citrus fruit. The hot appetizers include eggplant parmigiano, but not quite the classic Italian presentation. Half an eggplant is pre-fried, then baked with cheese and cherry tomatoes, and served with fresh stracciatella cheese. Another interesting hot appetizer (which is, rather, a full-fledged second course) – two meaty scallops with asparagus, celery puree, and truffle sauce. In the pasta section there is an attractive homemade pasta with crab.

The paste itself is a little loose, due to which it holds the bisque sauce well. There is also pasta with mixed seafood in your choice of sauce (white wine or tomatoes) and seasonal mushrooms. For main course – half a seabass baked in tomato sauce, with capers and potatoes, a Sicilian recipe, or octopus tentacles in a frying pan (octopus has a very regular consistency, large, soft and fibrous). Pizzas will appear on the menu very soon. For dessert there is a large selection of sweets, including classic tiramisu, Sicilian citrus jelly, which perfectly refreshes the tastebuds, and an elegant small piece of honey cake, served with a scoop of ice cream and strawberry jam. For the digestif – homemade, very soft limoncello liqueur.

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High gastronomic dictionary “Kommersant Style”

The gastronomy of Italy is far from limited to those products that are widely known. There are dozens of types of cheeses, pastas and sausages that many have not heard of. Today we will talk about the spicy Nduja sausage, originally from Calabria.

It is made from scraps and was previously considered a poor man’s dish, but nowadays it is a gourmet product that can be found in expensive restaurants. To prepare ‘nduja, you use fatty pork meat (all but the cheeks), trimmings, skin, fat and Calabrian pepper. All ingredients are crushed and placed in a natural casing – this is how this spicy sausage is made. Since its consistency is loose, almost crumbly, it is sold not only in a casing, but also in jars, that is, it can literally be spread on bread. It will pass for a spicy meat seasoning that can be used in any way you like. Italians use nduja in the most unexpected dishes.

For example, the chef of the Onest restaurant, Mirko Zago, suggests trying paccheri pasta (a very large tubular pasta) from the Gragnano region. It is prepared with bell peppers, fresh tomatoes and smoked ricotta cheese. Nduja is added to a sauce made from tomatoes, garlic and olive oil, and when the pasta is ready, a little more of this spicy product is added in the form of olive oil with nduja. This recipe was born to Zago when he was traveling in Calabria.

Claudio Pirovano from La Bottega Siciliana restaurant suggests trying an unusual combination of this spicy sausage in the “surf and turf” style (when the dish contains both seafood and meat) with sea urchins. His pasta is spicy, with tomato sauce and lemon zest: a very unusual combination and a good example of new Italian cuisine.

Restaurant pizza brand chef Arama Mnatsakanova (Probka, Maritozzo) adds nduja to Neapolitan pizza along with Taleggio cheese and zucchini. Just 20 g of nduja for taste, plus another 5 g are put in the oil that is poured on top of the pizza.

Italian-Lebanese restaurant Mina’s brand chef Gilberto Nasser adds spicy ‘nduja butter to octopus with sweet potato puree, giving the dish a completely unexpected twist.

Olga Karpova