Growing up in a rural farming region in
Moldova, I had the luxury of being surrounded
by homegrown, natural ingredients, an
awareness of the rich flavours that can be
found in the simplest of recipes, and a culture
of joy and unity around mealtimes – all of
which remain the bedrock of my
food-philosophy.
My mother was the village chef, and some of
my earliest memories are of watching her
avidly as she prepared huge dishes of local
cuisine (and then falling asleep in the kitchen
as she worked into the night). By the age of 7 I
was cooking independently; experimenting
and pushing the boundaries of what I could
make. While many failed cakes hit the street
beneath our balcony in the process (much to
my mother’s horror), this practice of
improvisation has been integral to my journey
as a creative; I discover new things every time I
make a dish, and my recipes are constantly
evolving (though I do try not to throw things
out of the window anymore).
At the age of 15 I moved to Moscow, where I
trained in Culinary Arts, and worked under
various different chefs. By the age of 21 I was
running the restaurant at the Garage Museum
of Contemporary Art, making me one of the
youngest Head Chefs in Russia. In 2011 my
kitchen won the Time Out award
For me, food is a very personal thing. I’m not
going to pretend that it’s some hugely
spiritual experience – but I do think that
flavours and textures have powerful nostalgic
qualities, and that eating should make you
feel happy; I think dishes carry feelings as well
as flavour, and I’m 100% sure that food tastes
better when it’s cooked by a happy chef!
My approach is simple in the sense that my
recipes rarely have many ingredients; it’s my
focus on specificity of flavour and texture that
makes my food unique. Being a chef is a
hugely creative job; it’s live and instinctive and
should never be a process of mindless
repetition. Every unexpected turn in the
kitchen is an opportunity to find something
new – in fact most of my best recipes have
arisen from experiments going ‘wrong’.
In the same way that I believe that happiness
comes from within, rather than from material
goods, flavour is much more important to me
than bells and whistles on a plate. I love to
make beautiful things, but at the end of the
day, it’s what’s inside that really counts.
I’m only one of millions of artists in the world;
we are all unique, and I know that not
everyone is going to love my food. Chefs need
to find their following – people whose tastes
match theirs. And if someone doesn’t like
something then it doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Art is subjective. And food is art.