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Chef Speckert recommends a Riesling Tradition Hugel, an elegant wine perfectly matched to mollusks, to complement the scallop dish.

Before you became a chef you worked as a receptionist in a hotel, then as a waiter, and finally as a restaurateur. Were these experiences valuable for your culinary career?

Of course! You have to remember that I had never planned on becoming a chef. I dreamed of becoming the director of a Swiss hotel, and received my first diploma in economics, focused on the restaurant business. Afterwards I was trained as a waiter, and while working in this position I fell in love with the art of cooking itself. For the last 18 of the 25 years I have worked in the restaurant industry, I’ve done what I feel I am most apt to do, which is combining the administrative abilities of the restaurateur with the creative responsibilities of a chef.

You owned a restaurant in Switzerland for almost 9 years. Do you have any intention of opening a restaurant of your own here in Russia?

Probably not, for a number of reasons. First, the job of restaurateur is already very difficult, and it would be twice as hard for me in Russia, where it is almost impossible for a foreigner to succeed without a Russian business partner. And that is a major problem, because I personally prefer to work alone. When I owned the restaurant in Switzerland, I was able to make all the decisions myself, to run things the way I wanted to run them. I’m not saying it was easy, because I had to work more than 16 hours a day in every capacity, as barman, chef, accountant and boss, and all at the same time. Currently, I want to open another restaurant, but in Tuscany, where my family owns a small piece of land. I don’t think I will face as much competition if I serve good, classic Russian cuisine, as opposed to Italian.

What are some of the particular differences between the restaurant business in Russia and Western Europe?

To begin with, there’s a huge difference in the number of people working in a Russian versus a European restaurant. European restaurants do not employ nearly as many staff members as Russian establishments do, because it is simply too expensive. There is also the discrepancy between the number of customers who frequent the place, which tend to be higher in European restaurants. Finally, there is the crucial contrast in terms of restaurant conception in both places. European restaurants focus much more on the food, on satisfying the gastronomic demands of its customers as opposed to entertaining them.

You have worked both in Moscow and in the Russian provinces. What are your impressions of each?

When I came to Moscow for the first time three years ago, I worked in the famous club Most, where I used to serve some dishes you just couldn’t find anywhere else in Russia at the time. But I also ran into some huge problems, because of the lack of products available and the inexperience of the restaurant owners. Luckily the situation has changed greatly, and that is why I decided to come back to Moscow. As for Yekatrinburg and Krasnoyarsk, where I also worked, these places were a little more boring for me, because I was cooking for an exclusive part of society which always consisted of the same customers. I prefer working in Moscow, with Muscovites, because they have their own particular taste, their special peculiarities and gastronomic preferences, founded upon a unique blend of Asian and European traditions.

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