Taste it!

The S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2010 have been announced. Noma is the best restaurant in the world. The restaurant from Denmark. Not bad, isn’t it?

In the middle of the last year I was invited by Restaurant Mazine to vote for best restaurants of the world. As a "critic" from Russia. Of course, I agreed.

Actually it's all confidential, but... here are 3 restaurants I voted for.

Alain Ducasse Louis XV – this is the immortal french haute cuisine. And Ducasse one of the founders of haute cuisine. He deserves to be one of the best, I think.

Mugaritz – I think this restaurant will climb up in 50 top restaurant of the world within few next years.

Nome – because it’s damn good.

First time I was in Noma few years ago when it was not so known worldwide, but already had 1 Michelin Star.

What can I say?

I was amazed how different could be haute cuisine. And I was amazed about the danish “terroir”. I didn’t know it even exist, before I visit Noma. I knew very well french style (good food is my passion and I’ve been to so many Michelin restaurant). I knew british style. Mediteranean.

But Noma totally blown my mind.

Now I can say it became even better and I’m really glad Noma now is the best restaurant in the world.

What’s special about this restaurant? Actually, everything. All the small details you will find there. So what is Noma?

It is a homage to soil and sea, a reminder of the source of our food. Take the starter of crunchy baby carrots from the fertile Lammefjorden region of Denmark, served with edible “soil” made from malt, hazelnuts and beer, with a cream herb emulsion beneath – you are literally eating the earth.

Cool, «n'est pas?»

Rene Redzepi told me few years ago that the food is his passion and that’s his mission is to make danish cuisine famous worldwide. Because it is amazing. And I totally agree.

Now it’s famous.

And it is the best. It’s a experience that reminds you why some restaurants deserve to be revered.

10 facts about Russia

- Vladimir Putin is not the president anymore. In 2008 he became the prime minister and he still is. The current president is Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Medvedev is already using iPad.

- Russia is huge. Bigger that you can imagine. You can take the flight from Moscow and within 10 hours you will be in Thailand. But you can take the different flight from Moscow and within 10 hours you will be still in Russia. Untill the last year our country had 11 time zones. From this year it has only 10.

- Believe me, you will find no bears in the streets with bottles of vodka. And russians are not hard drinkers. We drink like everyone else. Someone more, someone less.

- We’re not saying “Na zdorovie” when we are drinking. It’s a Hollywood myth.

- Moscow is a safe city. And Russia is a safe country. It’s not more dangerous than New York or London. All you have to do – is not to be stupid and go to some areas in the middle of the night where we never go ourselves. Otherwise you will become a victim of a robbery.

- Moscow is more of bussiness city. St-Petersburg is more cultural. If you have time to compare – visit both. If you’re thinking about just one city, start with St- Petersburg. It’s much more beautifull than Moscow.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky is not the best classical russian writer and “Crime and Punishment” is not the best russian book to read. If you want to read real classics, try Anton Chehov. As for “Crime and Punishment” I don’t like it at all. But it has a very good PR in the rest of the world. That’s the reason for the succes. To get a tragic version of humanity you can re-read Dostoevsky... Or spend a week in a provincial russian town!

- Russian cosmonauts do not drink vodka (I’m talking about the “Armageddon” movie). All of them are super healty and very interesting people. I know few guys personaly and can tell you that if you trust “Armageddon” image – it's all fake.

- Russian winters can be really cold. This year we had minus 25 C in Moscow. As for the north part of Russia tempу ture can go down to minus 45 C.

- Russian womуn are sexy and attractive. That’s why so many foreigners were caught in their nets.

If you have any additional questions about Russia, you can ask me. Every week I will answer the most interesing ones.

Associations

Sometimes I can see how interesting could be the human vision. Let's take this beauty salon in Moscow for example. I like the arrow on top of the entrance. It's so courageous. Manly, I would say... What do you see?

Gorgeous Gordon

I am a big fan of Hell's Kitchen show. And I like Gordon Ramsay. I met him on Sardinia. And we had a long conversation. I filmed it on my camera that I always take to all my trips. Here are the best parts of the interview:

Here we go...

Today I was sitting with a very good friend of mine in a lovely brand new restaurant Ginko in the Ritz Carlton Moscow hotel – right in the center of the city (if you, guys, love oriental food, you should definitely visit it!) and we were chatting about blogging and it’s evolution for the last few years. As a professional journalist I can say: without any doubts internet allowed us a strong chance to tell exciting stories to everyone and that opportunity didn’t exist before. More importantly – you can share your thoughts from anywhere! I’m writing this post from Moscow where I was born. And just 10 hours before I was in San Francisco having the same chance to write what I want.

So, I decided to start my own blog for those who want to know more about our world. I’m a travel journalist and I do a lot of stories for Forbes Russia, Robb Report, Elite life and Travel, ect. Untill last september I was the editor-in-chief of Forbes Style Russia, now I’m the editor-in-chief of Style Travel Magazine. I do features about good food, world’s best hotels, michelin chefs, ect. But sometimes I want to have more freedom and write what I want. Just because I think it could be interesting to someone. That’s the reason why this blog was born…

I will write here about Russia (I can bet you know almost nothing about this country) and about all my travels. To organize myself I will do this everyday (except for the time when I do not have the internet connection). And if I still do not – that means I am a lazy cow. Do I want you, guys, to think that? Of course not. So let’s start and have some fun together…

p.s. I am a native russian, so I suppose my english is not perfect. But believe me, I’m trying to be good. And I hope to improve my level by writing this blog. I will be happy to have your feedback even if it’s negative. Write what you think. Comment as like you want. Let’s be free from the rules.

To end the very first post, I’d like to give my favorite travel quote: “Life is like a book. And if you’re not traveling, you’re reading it’s one page…”