M O S C O W Interview with Leonid Shishkin - Passport magazine

Restaurant review
Moscow Trio
Charles W. Borden
Classic Italian off Delegatskaya
It’s difficult to keep up with Moscow’s new restaurant
openings, and based upon stats, the Italian chef recruitment
business must be booming. L’Albero is just one of
a number of post-crisis Italian newcomers on PASSPORT’s
must-visit list. Opened by veteran restaurateur Andrey
Zaitsev (Noa), l’Albero is ensconced in a grand old two-story
building behind the fenced yard of an educational organization
on quiet Delegatskaya, just north of the Garden
Ring. The interior is light and open with huge windows,
tables large and widely spaced, providing a very relaxed
and quiet environment.
Jean-Michel Brunie of UBS, Elena Fedko of Baker McKenzie
Kiev, and Antoine Poissonier of Collection Privee joined John
Ortega and me for dinner. We were fortunate to meet resident
chef Nicola Canuti to discuss his work and recommendations.
Canuti’s menu is “classic Italian with a new taste” according to
the promotions. Canuti has worked in several Alain Ducasse
restaurants including his Spoon restaurants in St. Tropez, Tunis
and Mauritius.
L’Albero has a selection of Canuti’s pasta, risotto, and meats
creations and an ample selection of grill seafood that range
in price from 290r per 100 grams for calmari to 900r for octopus.
I started with an Octopus and Artichoke Salad (1550r),
June 2010
large sections of octopus presented on an artichoke puree
with hazelnuts, delightful. The pleasing, fresh, bright green
Minestrone (400r) was beautifully presented.
The signature meat dish is a lamb filet, oven cooked slowly
for 36 hours with fennel, oregano, cumin and sumac (1250r),
which unfortunately was still in the oven. Nicola recommended
the Osso Buco with Vegetables (1350r), which was perfectly
cooked and served with a small silver spoon to lap up the
centerpiece pureed marrow from the bone.
The restaurant prides itself on its bakery, and not just the
creative, fresh baked goods that started the meal; we topped
off the meal with a selection of small sweets from the chef’s
recipe book. L’Albero is easily one of Moscow’s top Italian restaurants.
Business lunches range from 750 to 1200 rubles. Cooking
classes are the rage in Moscow now, and chef Canuti has
joined in. Classes are 3500 rubles, but children can apparently
join as well, free. P
L’Albero
Delegatskaya Str., 7
+7 495 650 1674
www.albero.su