Wine and Food

Björn, Nordic Cuisine, Restaurant, Moscow, Russia

6 points

Moscow is rich of interesting and good restaurants. I don’t know the reason why there isn’t any Michelin Star restaurant in Moscow. Sometimes I think this could have political reasons as there are very talented, creative and excellent chefs. I would say that there isn’t any other town in the world in which you find so many different, exclusively fascinating furnished, distinctly designed and decorated restaurants.

Eating in Moscow is somehow challenging. On one hand you get really everything as most exotic and fresh seafood, independently to seasons any kind of vegetables from all place of the globe but more and more again also some local stuff. Some of the best Italian restaurants I know in the world are in Moscow. For example I got the most original and best tasting burrata outside of Apulia in the Russian capital. On the other hand this variety and quality has its price. Dining in Moscow on a high niveau costs a fortune, not only because almost every item has to get flyed in, there is customs and huge investments in interior. As long as there are enough people who pay such prices all seems to be fine. Certainly it has its legitimation to offer expensive food as long as you have quests who are ready to pay. The only problem is, that those places are even too expensive for so-called mid-class. Not to mention all poor people who are the majority of course. This said, excellent dining in Moscow belongs to rich people only. But since maybe three years there are some new places coming up which are rather unostentatious, much less expensive but even smarter designed restaurants which offer delicious and also sometimes remarkable dishes.

Although I will report also about some of the most snobbish and expensive restaurants in Moscow my first review is devoted to a new place which has been introduced to me by some almost 20 year younger colleague Asya Pavlovskaya. I am writing this because I perhaps would not have found this place as it is a location of certainly younger people.

I have been in Björn, a new gourmet restaurant – some people would call it eatery – which offers nordic cuisine, what ever this could mean.

The chef of the place is Kasper Gaard (Kasper Gaard on Facebook) together with Herman Medvedev. I haven’t met them in person, I just read about them in the internet after I visited the place. Nevertheless the cooking is fascinating, the dishes are surely modern, rich of tastes and original. In particular the flavours were really authentic, you could imagine Scandinavian countryside, forests and of course waters. Aside of real top quality food the preparation and decoration is amazing.

appetizer for two: Beetroot, Sardines with Poached Eggs and Goat Cheese

Chicken “Balantine” with mashed peas and cauliflower

Deer Filet with XXL croquettes – the meat is super tender! Cowberry and a few mushrooms invite you to the forest

The best, the most interesting and extravagant dish was the desert: a melting chocolate cake with some sour cream with sea sold on the top and flavored with thymine! This was really amazing: sweat and rich due to the chocolate and cake, elegantly countered by sourness and salt and balanced with thyme! Just really remarkable and unique.

The only catastrophe is the wine list. As happy I was getting a real good unfiltered, bit sour beer as a refreshment at the beginning the wine selection is uninspired, simply poor if not even bad. Perhaps it is because usually good wine is extraordinary expensive – which would be the only countable reason in my mind – or because nobody really takes care about it.

As said at the beginning: this is a modern place, not ambitious with excellent and affordable foot! The cuisine is exclusive and keeps promise: this is somehow real nordic food. The service has been very friendly, too shy in a way considering that the chefs have many reasons to be self-confident.

There is a very nice webpage of the restaurant where you of course could make a reservation as well:  Björn Moscow