Restaurateur Anatoly Komm is not the usual chef with his background from the fashion industry, but originally a geophysicist. Today he has turned his passion for food into business and is a co-owner of several Russian restaurants. Anatoly Komm’s best restaurant is the Varvary restaurant located in the Strasnoy Shopping Centre.

Varvary became famous as one of the first international fine dining restaurants in Moscow. Anatoly Komm has become attached to the molecular gastronomy and employs scientific process to break ingredients down to their most basic components to present the flavours in new fashionable forms.

The restaurant interior is lavish and a lot of money has been spent just as with many of the upscale Moscow restaurants, but the interior might be perceived as kitsch by some. The service leaves nothing more to ask for.

Varvary has two different restaurants; one for haute cuisine and one Italian trattoria in the same building so make sure to choose from the haute cuisine menu. You will have a selection to choose from the dégustation menu that is changed four times per year and it can be dishes like the Kamchatka Crab History, herrings in furs, salmon eggs and green grocery snow and pelmini. Anatoly Komm is doing a great job in using French cooking techniques and tastes in his own molecular reinterpretations of classic Russian cuisine.

Varvary belongs to the very best restaurants in Moscow today and can easily compete on an international level as well. Considering how many billionaires and millionaires there are in Moscow there should be several more top restaurants in the city than are available today and hopefully will Moscow eventually have more dedicated super chefs as well.

Images courtesy of Varvary

Written by John