There are places on Earth where I’d move tomorrow morning, like Colorado and Sweden, Greece and Australia, and others I can admire for the most various reasons but where I’ll only go when the right occasion comes. As with Moscow. I’ve never written a piece for Il Giornale, never received a food-related invitation. Never until last Thursday, 27th October when Carlo Cracco opened his restaurant abroad inside 5 star luxury hotel Lotte. The owners are Korean and it’s on Novinskly avenue, tel. +7.495.2870515.
With his Ovo Cracco took the place of a great chef from France, Pierre Gagnaire, who was penalised by the difficulty in finding his beloved products directly from his mother land and also by a particular French rigidity, as they’re always recalcitrant when they have to come to terms with reality. In this sense, we Italians are more practical. Take tomatoes for the sauce. Since he couldn’t count on Italian ones, the chef to whom Carlo handed the direction of Ovo, Emanuele Pollini, already at Carlo e Camilla in Segheria in Milan, this summer contacted some farms outside the Russian capital. The tomatoes are excellent and Russian. Does the second detail matter? I believe not.
While
Pollini runs the kitchen,
Alessandro Troccoli does the same in the dining room. The establishment offers
Contemporary Italian cuisine. Contemporary is an essential adjective. These are not rhetorical or folkloristic Italian dishes, but
Cracco’s. It surely won’t be easy. When evoking Italy abroad, very often they’re still stuck with
Peppino Di Capri and
Toto Cotugno. And Moscow doesn’t seem to be different apart from the preaching of nice people like Sicilian
Nino Graziano, who already had 2 stars near Palermo and is in Russia since 2005.
Besides, Moscow on the 25th hosted the Giornata mondiale della pasta [the World Pasta Day]. Niko Romito and Davide Scabin arrived specially while for Cracco it was a coincidence – three days of special events at Lotte plus, for instance, a visit to the Italian embassy where he explained how «the main features of Italian cuisine are simplicity and honesty and great products. Meanwhile, it evolved. So these days it is also made of research, technique, transformation. If today it is experiencing such a great moment, it’s because it allowed change. We’re trying to keep on improving it through technique and experience and to make it travel around the world».
Seasonal pickled vegetables with “perfect” egg yolk and orange curd, is the name given to the Italian more cryptic Tuorlo e non tuorlo. There’s an egg yolk hidden under the salad, which you have to break and mix with the leaves, while the large orange candy on the edge of the plate is a spherification of orange juice which you must eat last. Slurppppppp
At
Lotte they did things big time. Ferrari was served as a welcome and with the starter, a game of real egg yolk and a fake orange juice yolk, and a blue Ferrari racing car at the entrance of the restaurant called
Ovo after the emblem of the chef from Vicenza. There are three tasting menus, for three, five and seven dishes, respectively 3,100, 4,600 and 6,400 rubles, around 45, 70 and 100 euros. These are unimaginable prices in Milan, but then Ovo is not in Milan, it’s 2,800 km to the east. The prices of wines, instead, what with taxes and premium prices are staggering.
Under each item in the menu they state weight and calories. For instance, a superb Risotto Marinara weighs 170 grams and with 657 calories is the lightest dish. This is imposed by Russian law, so you know what you get for your money. Plus there are three coloured symbols, three diamonds: white for recipes including lactose, red for gluten free and green for vegetarian. Simple, clear, effective.
Even if you’re in Moscow for less than 24 hours, a visit to the Kremlin and the Red Square is a must. You’re always struck by their size and the history that has affected this place and still does. Still, it is at night that they offer the best view, releasing unique beauty and intensity
and
Troccoli have been working since the spring so that everything could start before the winter. Over there there’s already around 0 C, it’s often snowing in the morning while they sky “warms up” and stays a grey sky. Avenues can have up to seven lanes each way. If you want to cross the road it’s far best to take the subway. The sale of vodka and poisons burning your guts ends at 11.30. Pay attention: 11.30 a.m. In Moscow it will soon be mid winter so it’s best to organise a trip to Moscow far into the spring, even though the stupour for the Kremlin’s beauty, and all the beautiful jewels surrounding it, will make you forget any weather-related difficulty.
