Italian sparkling water brand Sanpellegrino brings a new wave Russian chef to Bangkok
Tradition with a shot of the unusual
Sanpellegrino, Italy’s best known brand of mineral water and assorted real-fruit sodas, underlined its commitment to gastronomic bliss last week with the launch of its Fine Dining Lovers Guest Chef Series featuring chef Vladimir Mukhin from the famed Moscow restaurant White Rabbit.
Hosted by The House on Sathorn, the dinner showcased Mukhin’s interest in respecting traditions while pursuing new culinary techniques, an approach that has made him one of the leaders of Russia’s “new wave” cuisine.
He embarks on gastronomic expeditions all over Russia to search for new components, and brings back forgotten tastes of Russian cuisine in the most unexpected combinations of ingredients and dishes. Seasonality, topicality and taste are the main principles of his menus for White Rabbit, which is currently ranked 23rd on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
“I am a fifth generation chef. Russian cuisine is in my blood.” Mukhin told XP. “I am inspired by local products, many of which are unknown abroad, as well as our native cooking techniques – languor or slow oven cooking, fish drying, salting, soaking and the like.
Russian cuisine is developing incessantly and it is ready for new ideas. My mission is to hold its banner to promote it all over the world, to find inspiration and depth in the clean flavour of natural products and create interesting and emotional dishes.”
The nine-course dinner started with an avant-garde looking tube filled with sparkling water and blackcurrant leaf infusion to be downed after a tiny bite of rabbit cabbage and smoked goose – a nice treat to whet the appetite.
Next up was a sweet-and-salty savoury dish of chestnut honey meringue served with liver terrine and a refreshing and cooling Madeira jelly that mildly cleansed the palate ready for another highlight – sheep cheese mousse served with persimmon and jerked horse meat.
Other stellar signature dishes included lightly salted salmon served with cowberries, calf sweetbreads with wood mushrooms and the main course, black cod with false porridge from asparagus.
The meal ended with sensational dessert, “golden scallop”, which was actually a panna cotta of sheep’s milk mousse served with mango in a theatrical presentation. To wash it all down, the chef gave each guest a “Russian pearl”– a shot of Beluga Noble Russian vodka coated with a crispy shell made of liquid sea buckthorn.
The dinner was paired with Sanpellegrino and Acqua Panna natural mineral waters, Bellavista sparkling wine from Italy and Beluga Noble Russian, making it an elaborate dining experience.
Sanpellegrino initiated the ‘Fine Dining Lovers Guest Chef Series’ both as a showcase for renowned chefs and a top-notch Epicurean experience for diners in Thailand. Sanpellegrino also supports gourmet cuisine through FineDininglovers.com, an online magazine co-sponsored by Acqua Panna.
AMAZING ASIA
< The next Sanpellegrino Fine Dining Lovers Guest Chef Series events are next Wednesday and Thursday at The Peninsula Bangkok featuring Tam Kwong Funk from Macau, and from January 15-17 at The Okura Prestige Bangkok with Shinji Kanesaka and Toru Osumi manning the kitchen.
<To book a table at The Peninsula Bangkok, |call (02) 861 2888.
<For The Okura Prestige Bangkok, call (02) 687 9000.
<For more about the |programme, visit www.FineDiningLovers.com.
