Restaurateur
Saveliy Libkin

Thinking aloud about Italian restaurants

Good Italian restaurant in Prague is…

• Chef with notions.
• A half of personnel are Ukrainians.
• Slicer Berkel at a price $10 000 with prosciutto San Daniele in the dining area surely, plus 30-40 options of grappa and fresh mozzarella di Bufala and Sicilian tomatoes.
• 5-7 options of the freshest Mediterranean fish.
• Short Italian menu.
• Balsamic and olive oil of decent quality.
• Decent interior, without «Celentano» in the frames, empty wine bottles as a décor, junk is present but a little.
• Check makes 30-70 Euros without wine

Good Italian restaurant in London is…

• Books about the chef at the most noticeable place of the dining area.
• The handsome chef in person in the dining area.
• A half of personnel in the kitchen are black-skinned.
• The personnel of the dining area are with notions and know about food.
• You can purchase some products to take away
• Short menu always.
• Very delicious and more often more delicious then in Italy.
• The interior is functional, restrained and performed by noted architect.
• Wine in bottles is present in the interior.
• Check makes from 50 up to 70 pounds without wine.

Good Italian restaurant in Italy (Milan, Rome or Florence isn’t considered) is…

• All the personnel of kitchen are black-skinned.
• The chef is from Montenegro or Croatia.
• 3-4 options of grappa and enough options of another aperitif.
• 15-20 options of very delicious antpasti on the big table in the dining area.
• Age of the waiters is far more then 50.
• Big portions.
• Borscht and solyanka are absent.
• Very delicious olive oil without labels.
• Interior doesn’t pay attention to itself and looks like nobody worked on it.
• Torn couch and family portrait in the dining area.
• Check makes up to 30 Euros

Italian restaurants in Dnepropetrovsk are …

• 15 cooks graduated from culinary school in Tiraspol at 15 square meters.
• No one including the chef understands what good Italian food is.
• Everything beginning from solyanka and borscht up to steaks and beef Stroganoff is present in the menu.
• Pizza and pasta are made from Ukrainian flour and Ukrainian sense.
• Mozzarella of local style also.
• Plastic onion and garlic are hanged everywhere in the dining area.
• Everything is checked.
• Huge quantity of different junk and empty bottles of olive-green color is placed on the shelves.
• A lot of firewood.
• Interior was made by Sikorskiy.
• Palm and other gilding can be met, but these are moves of another expert.
• Check makes from 90 up to 200 hryvnas

Good Italian restaurant in Moscow is…

• v. like in London but without chef and books in the dining area, and check makes about $160

Italian restaurant in Odessa is…

• The chef read Visotskaya at best.
• Personnel can say hello in Italian.
• The matters with cooks are going better then in Dnepropetrovsk.
• Solyanka is almost absent in the menu.
• Flour and other products is Ukrainian.
• Cooks can’t make pasta but they try.
• Under the name fresh fish is salmon in the menu.
• Balsamic by Knorr or similar.
• Everything is checked also.
• All shelves are filled up with junk, empty bottles and flowerpots with wooden trash.
• Plastic onion and decorations from colored noodles are present in the interiors.
• A lot of firewood.
• The hand of the same expert like in Dnepropetrovsk is noticed.
• Wood-fired oven in the dining area and «Celentano» in the frames.
• Check makes from 70 up to 160 hryvnas.

I’ll repeat myself: the character is generalized and doesn’t pretend to 100% precision or polyhistory. The exceptions are exists surely. I wrote this in rainy weather and after meeting with officials.

Tags: Gastro-tourism, путешествия, Restaurants

I’d like to share my impressions about my last trip to provincial Italy. Now I’ll tell briefly about those restaurants-latterias-salumerias to which I paid my attention and which were recommended to my by different good people.  I’ll tell what for you should go there and what you should to taste, and then I’ll write  more detailed about each of the regions visited by me. In any case there is a huge choice of gastronomic miracles in Italy and it’s impossible to say what is better, that is why I write only about my own impressions.

I write and catch myself at the thought what whould we do so that Italians after visisting our county can describe with the same passion what they saw in gastronomic sphere.

1. Latteria and large-tonnage cheese caves of the company Beppino Occelli in the village Valcasotto (Cuneo, Piedmont). There are more then 20 sorts of delicacy which is called «cheese» in the pricelist of this company.

What for to go and what to taste:

• Butter Beppino Occelli Burro di Panna Fresca, which was called  by the editions Wine Spectator and The Guardian the best butter in the world according to the results of testing of 13 kinds of buttesr;
• Cheese Testun Occelli al Barolo, keeping to mature within two years, and at that two last months — in the pulp from the wine Barollo;
• Cheese Escarun, made in the end of spring from the milk of sheep and cows, grazing at the most highland pastures of Alps;
• Cheese Castelmano DOP made from raw milk, it is produced only in three villages of valley Grana;
• Series of fresh goat cheeses: Tuma dla Paja, Crava Ocelli, Robiola di Mondovi Ocelli, Casutin and Tuma Langarola.
• To talk with the seller in the store at the cheese caves.

2. Salumeria Corte dell`Oka di Palestro Gioachino in the small town Mortara near Pavia. A few tens of sort of delicate products: sausage and many types of other food from a goose, a few sorts of pâté and terrines and of course foie gras.

What for to go and what to taste:

• Salame crudo d’Oca Ecumenico;
• Filetto d’Oca baciato;
• Foie gras «Fegato fresco»;
• La Terrina di Fegato grasso d’Oca;
• To buy a jar of goose fat Grasso d’Oca fuso;
• Prosciutto from goose legs Petto у Prosciuttino d’Oca stagionati;
• Plus goose breast pickled and then boiled in the goose fat.
• To see the faces of the people from this family who are occupy themselves with this BUSINESS.

3. Salumeria Luiset Agrisalumeria in the small town Ferrere d’Asti, 20 km away from Alba. This mini salumeria produces 18 sorts of delicacies: several sorts of salami and  salsiccia, lardo, Pancetta, lonza and prosciutto.

What for to go and what to taste:

• Saliami Crudi — pork salami without preservatives.
• To see love for business and huge pride for the result of every employee

4. Restaurant «Il Cuuc» in Corte dell`Oka, Mortara. The menu of the restaurant offers all the products of salumeria Corte dell`Oka in the form of dishes.

What for to go and what to taste:

• Foie gra and other dishes from meat and goose liver.
• To look at simple and delicious solutions of local designers.

5. Cheese dairy Branzi to the north from Bergamo in the mountains. The basic product of cheese dairy — cheese Branzi FTB and Formai de Mut DOP. At the rest seasons they produce cheese Rozetta, Straccino Valligiano and Straccino .

What for to go and what to taste:

• Famous cheese Formai de Mut, which is produced only in summer from the milk from local mountain pastures. The question of observance of these conditions is controlled firmly by the association of producers of this cheese.
• To talk with crown owner of the latteria. (He talks about milk like about beloved child)

6. Village Taleggio.

What for to go and what to taste:

• Cheese of the same name Taleggio,  it is difficult to find this cheese of a good quality  at the Ukrainian suppliers.
• To taste constantly and compare cheese.

7. Alba. The main product in Alba and in neighborhoods is not salami of course. Everything is dedicated to the truffles here… white, black, small and very large, smelling mysteriously always  and very expensive.

What for to go and what to taste:

• The basic local specialties: white truffle and apples San Marzano. Sure also meat Bue Grasso — meat of Piedmont fat bull, which is the basis of the dish Bollito Misto. Saffron yellow tajarin — Piedmont thin noodles, like Tagliolini which is served with local sweetish butter and white truffles

• In the not tourist restaurant La Libera — ravioli with ricotta, spinach and egg, covered with truffle (I could hardly dissuade myself from repeating), pork legs fried with dried crust and salad from chicken with foie gras. And also 7-8 sort of local cheeses and crazy panna cotta with pear for dessert.
• To put on several kilograms of delicious weight.

8. Trattoria Vasccelo d`Oro in the small town Carru. In this restaurant the father of the family works as a chef, mother helps the waiters, and the rest of stuff are children, nephews and uncle from this family.

What for to go and what to taste:

• Piedmont cuisine in the village style, and without truffles and without menu at all.
• You should taste obligatory Bollito misto and preferably in the village-restaurant implementation
• To breathe the fresh air

9. Barollo and architecture of Ceretto Company

What for to go and what to taste:

• To see where rich people invest money
• To taste barollo for 50-70 Euro
• To look at the culture of production and keeping of wine and wine materials and vineyards.
• To communicate with the third heirs managing the huge business.
• To try to calculate how much money the company spend in vain:)

Tags: Gastro-tourism, travel, путешествия

It isn’t always convenient to take pictures of food in the restaurants… moreover it can be difficult to tear yourself away from the plate, but however in the present case I picked up the camera from the floor. On the first photo is one of the most famous dishes in the L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges by Bocuse « Bresse Chicken». It is boiled, and at that after the order, in the pig’s bladder, served with morels, vegetables and rice. The absence of  any greens, chips and other beauty is noticeable. The chicken is dressed and served by the waiters near the table. This dish is called Bresse chicken cooked in a bladder a «la Mere Fillioux» in the menu. It is more interesting to eat 165 Euros per four persons then per two.

Further is «Sweetbreads» or ris of calf with black truffles and celery purée in the rather contemporary restaurant of young chef Fabien Blanc La Remanence.  The French name of this dish is Ris de veau. In the menu it is written like this: Ris de veau croustillant cuit au beurre noisette, Crumble de pieds de mouton, jus truffé. Almost in all respectable restaurants of Lyon the menu is in French solely…and there is no flirting with the tourists. Décor and other flowers are absent in the dish also.

In the Guy Lassausaie near Lyon which is agnominated by the chef’s name I tasted another interpretation of Sweetbreads.  This time with artichokes, salsify and morels with morels’ juice. The original name in the menu is Ris de veau de lait rôti en cocotte, artichaut, salsifis et jus aux morilles. The salsify’s leaves in the dish didn’t look like decoration…

In the best restaurants a huge attention is paid to the temperature and quality of the paltes, quality of the tablecloths and attention of the personnel. And design-décor of the dishes almost in every respectable restaurant comes to the duo product-sauce or to the triumvirate product-garnish-sauce.

Tags: Gastro-tourism, food, travel, путешествия

In Zürich I watched a child aged about 3 years stamped in the puddle about 10 minutes and was glad… and his father watched the child aside calmly didn’t influence him not at all. The respect to the personality appreciably distinguish the Swisses from the Slavs… Maybe that’s why the Swisses as a nation achive more? And maybe because three languages are official at the same time…?

Tags: people, travel, путешествия

My legs, head and especially my brains ache after the whole day of gastronomic loads. Having founded ourselves in the not very tourist zone we come across the shop with local antiques. At the area of 18 meters are located a few thousands of items of flatware and other utensils. All the things are frayed by life and time but they didn’t loose their special charm but rather found it during the time of their service. At the counter is a lady of advanced age but without the traces of interferences of cosmetic quacks and because of it she resembles much the goods in her own shop by the life gloss. Each day and each emotion are present in the million of wrinkles but taking into account its natural origin her appearance rather attracts and doesn’t resemble at all some embalmed alive local stars of the past century that still can’t part with age fears and that is why they rather resemble anti-advertising of beauty clinics.

There is one buyer in the shop and that is why we didn’t notice any attention to our persons except a nod and a fluent smile in the tails of owner’s eyes. I was totally lost because a huge camera which hanged on my neck the whole day seemed to be too unsuitable in this shop. But the impressions got their way and I dared to take a few pictures quickly without asking permission but also without raising the lens in the direction of buyers and sellers. I only fixed in the memory of the camera piles of spoons and forks winded by the twine in 6-12 pieces to some fantastically silver-plated rollers.

We left the shop in a few minutes when we understood that we as tourists don’t arouse commercial interest of the owner who was busy in talk with a buyer – gentleman of about 65 years old. We hardly made about 30 steps when exactly that gentleman who was in the shop and politely but absolutely insistently asked us to come back to the shop. Kind of the owner asks. And he explained that there was a robbery in the shop not so long ago, and it seems exactly after a few Asians took pictures of her utensils. He said that the owner was warned strictly by the policemen that it is important for the clearance of crime to call to the police as soon as somebody will take off the lid from the lens. I don’t know if we were the first who aroused suspicion but when we come back to the shop the owner with the same micro-smile explained us in a moment that she just fulfills the order of police and nothing more than that.

We explained that the photos have tourist context solely and in general we are just the tourists nothing more than that. They let us go having said goodbye politely. We felt once again that homeland with its attitude to police is far away. Hopelessly far away.

And below are exactly those photos.

Tags: Лион, travel, путешествия

A few photos of dishwashers.
On the lower photo is the dishwasher from three-star restaurant of Bocuse, on the upper one is the dishwasher from the restaurant Guy Lassausaie with two stars.

Tags: travel, путешествия, туризм