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Writer Anya von Bremzen revisits Moscow and discovers a booming restaurant scene in the city of her birth.

Say goodbye to cubicle life; in Naples, beauty is balanced by chaos; Terminator Salvation pummels the audience.

Healthy, delicious recipes from a fi tness retreat; say goodbye to oaky Chardonnay and welcome leaner, fresher styles.

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5

TRAVEL+LEISURE

t+l journal | food

�ARELY 24 HOURS IN MOSCOW AND I’VE ALREADY

ingested a year’s worth of foie gras at a glitzy

fashion reception, nearly gotten trampled at the

Revolution Square metro station, and been in-

sulted by bus drivers and dill-hawking babushkas

because I don’t radiate the finger-snapping im-

periousness demanded by the world’s brashest capital.

Oddly, I find all the rudeness endearing. I feel like I’m home

again, back in the U.S.S.R. of my childhood.

“Forget politesse—Muscovites respect only power,” in-

structs my old friend J. He and I are reconnecting over

flaky pirozhki and almond croissants at ��

��, a neo-Baroque pastry annex of the ever-popular

Café Pushkin. Once a pillar of the scruffy Moscow intelli-

gentsia, J. is now a contemporary-art czar. He shares plans

for a sculpture show on the roof of the FSB (ex-KGB)

headquarters. “Imagine the hype!” he chuckles. He de-

scribes his fondness for restaurants like Semifreddo, an

oligarch’s dining club with $50 scampi carpaccios. “And

soul? Redemption?” I tease. My Dostoyevskian mockery

hits a nerve. “Aah, what’s become of us?” J. wonders, dark-

ening. Hmm, interesting question.

The Moscow I grew up in during the stagnation of the

Brezhnev era had no oligarchs or almond croissants—only

soul and stale sausage. Now, back on one of my regular visits

from New York, with my mother and boyfriend in tow, I’m

even more bewildered than usual. Glamurno is the new most »

�� !� ��"��#$�$$�" ��

popular word in the Russian vocabulary, and this defiant

profligacy seems unabated by recent tumbles. Faded old

mansions have become garish replicas of their old selves—

complete with two-Bentley garages. “It’s like Dubai with

Pushkin statues,” exclaims my boyfriend, Barry, here for the

first time. “A strange carnival,” adds my mother, who left

30 years ago. We pass a Maserati showroom near a house

where we once lived—nine families sharing one bathroom in

a ghastly communal apartment. “Nobody seems to remem-

ber the deprivations!” Mom laments.

Me, I don’t have time to regret collective oblivions. I’m

too busy digesting Moscow’s booming restaurant scene.

London minimalism, Romanov pomp, Tokyo appropria-

tion, Cossack kitsch—it’s all here somewhere in a city that

never stops eating, krizis or no krizis. You can even have a

delicious arugula salad while gazing out at Lenin’s mauso-

leum and St. Basil’s candy-colored domes—as we do one

lunchtime at ��. Every tourist trap should be like

Bosco Bar (adjacent to the expensive Bosco Café), with its

prime Red Square tables and surprisingly elegant pastas

and salads served alongside Russian classics. While Mom

moons over the soulful dacha-style fried potatoes with

mushrooms and Barry ponders the Kremlin, I scan the

Russian food press. Apparently, this season’s hot story is

about Moscow’s new embrace of domestic ingredients,

t+l journal | food

TRAVEL+LEISURE

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t+l journal | food

which doesn’t sound like a story—until you notice that

here, in one of the world’s richest agricultural countries,

even the onions in the supermarkets are imported from

Holland. Curious, I call my friend Igor, owner of two popu-

lar restaurants. “I get my ingredients mainly from France,”

he admits. Local farmers produce excellent stuff, he ex-

plains, but most of it bottlenecks in the bureaucracy.

Bribe-loving lawmakers create endless obstacles. “I’m

always feeding political bigwigs,” says Igor, “and I tell

them, ‘Stay out of our business, so we can feed you better!’ ”

Perhaps there’s hope. Russia’s current food fights echo

the Westernizers-versus-Slavophiles debates of the mid

19th century. The most recent wave of Westernizers has

hooked Muscovites on Ibérico ham and burrata. Shunning

Cyrillic, it has spawned restaurants named Suzy Wong Bar or

Cherry Mio. But Slavophiles are fighting back. The unlikely

leader of this return to the soil is molecular-minded chef

Anatoly Komm, darling of European avant-garde food circles.

Not only does Komm deconstruct borscht and herring into

capsules and gels at his new restaurant, Varvary, but he does so

using exclusively Russian products, nurturing regional growers.

Perhaps because of this, dinner at Varvary costs a golden arm

and a leg. So, instead we head to the self-service ��

��, Moscow’s other new homegrown hot spot.

No gels or foams here at this doting replica of a

Communist-era stolovaya (workers’ canteen) within the ritzy

GUM department store. Just smoky pea soup, oladyi (small,

lacy blini) fried in rich Vologda butter, and cleanly ren-

dered herring under a fur coat (a.k.a. beet salad), that sine

qua non of a proletarian repast, served on grayish stolovaya-

issue dishware. Mom’s almost in tears at the archival

respect for the past. The golden schnitzels and rosy franks

look like their Technicolor photos in the Book of Healthy and

Tasty Cuisine, a beloved Stalin-era kitchen bible. Long lines

at the cashier add authenticity. Everyone’s here: Kremlin

staffers and slinky GUM salesgirls, a millionaire and his

bodyguard, all clearing their own dishes, nostalgic for the

days of the “classless society.” Apparently, Muscovites do

»

t+l journal | food

TRAVEL+LEISURE

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remember. But here’s the irony: this simulacrum of the

Homo sovieticus dining experience was created by a multina-

tional luxury brand, Bosco di Ciliegi, owners of Bosco Bar.

I forgive Moscow restaurants their theme-parkishness.

After all, it was less than 20 years ago that a dining-out cul-

ture re-emerged from long decades of Socialist shortages. A

Soviet restoran was a place where thugs groped peroxided

blondes while a band blasted. When privately owned restau-

rants first started popping up in the late 1980’s, most Soviets

were still pickling their own cabbage and brewing samogon

(moonshine) using cheapo candies, because even sugar was

scarce. Food critics date a Western-style dining scene to the

1992 opening of Sirena by restaurant über-impresario

Arkady Novikov. After introducing the civilized pleasures

of oysters on ice, Novikov rose to become Moscow’s ruling

restaurateur, a coolmeister with infinite influence and some

four dozen establishments—all hyper-professional—in his

$40 million portfolio. New Moscow’s current adulation

of London-style sleekness? Blame Novikov. That omnipres-

ent menu mix of carpaccios and sushi, foie gras on brioche,

and black bread with herring? Novikov again.

Wherever the coolmeister goes, the jeunesse dorée fol-

lows. Tonight, everyone’s having spicy tuna rolls, tandoori

duck, and stupendous Kamchatka crab—the new “it”

comestible—prepared with great skill and Asian flair at

Novikov’s �� . Young dudes in Roberto Cavalli

velvets and animal prints actually blend into the décor, a

postmodern tour de force of mixed textures and surfaces

created by Super Potato, the cult Japanese design firm.

Industrialists’ daughters cluster together pouting over their

green teas—worried, perhaps, about their dads’ petro-

fortunes. “Oligarchs? They’re nanogarchs now!” hoots

the gypsy-cab driver we flag down to get home. Then he

blames us—Americans—for Russia’s financial collapse.

We get blamed again the next day—by a manager

showing us around the eye-popping !�� restaurant.

This grandiose folly was erected by Novikov’s archrival,

Andrey Dellos, who owns Café Pushkin up the street. “A

slap in the face of the minimalism-loving elite!” is how

Dellos, a former artist, describes his brand of unrestrained

luxury. Turandot is his masterpiece of Rococo on steroids:

an invented 18th-century palace crammed with chinoise-

rie, frescoes, and damask that took 500 artisans, six years,

and a reported $50 million to create. “Shame on you,

money-obsessed American press, always writing about

what Mr. Dellos spent,” rebukes the manager. “Who can

put a price on cultural patrimony?” In a semicircular

chamber under a sky-blue dome we play Marie Antoinette

as comrades in powdered wigs serve us fusiony fare in-

spired by London’s Hakkasan. The fanciful dim sum, the

crispy duck salad ringed by a wreath of greens, the venison

pirozhki with black-pepper–and-oyster sauce—all are tasty,

food | t+l journal

»

food | t+l journal

TRAVEL+LEISURE

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as they should be at these prices. Barry reports that the

urinals in the men’s room are made of delft porcelain.

After lunch he and I are off to the All-Russia Exhibition

Center, my favorite Moscow spot. Mom, an old dissident,

passes on this vast Socialist Realist wonderland built in

1939 to glorify collectivization. The propaganda-kitsch

sprawl of Stalinist pavilions now houses vendors of souve-

nirs. As a kid I adored the Friendship of Nations fountain:

a gilded lollapalooza of collective farm maidens in the

national garbs of the 15 erstwhile Soviet republics encircl-

ing a gigantic bundle of wheat. “Where’s that colonialist

agrarian fantasy now?” Barry quips. “Russia’s cutting

off Ukraine’s gas…hammering Georgia.” Suddenly I’m

overcome with a childish desire to turn back the clock

with a spin through the kitchens of the former republics.

Our first stop, ��, is Azerbaijan as imagined by

Novikov. The smart, understated design is more Belgravia

than Baku, but the vibrant cuisine—related to that of

Persia—would do an Azeri grandmother proud. Mom’s

back on board as we sip sage tea from cut-crystal glasses

and try succulent Caspian sturgeon kebabs and herbaceous

lamb stews spooned onto aromatic basmati-rice pilafs.

Farther up Novy Arbat, a Khrushchev-era grand boulevard,

Georgia is represented by a cavernous restaurant called

"��#$��, where the kitchen spins out its own spicy

regional feast. Khachapuri pies ooze pungent cheese; knotted

khinkali dumplings squirt peppery meat juices into our

mouths; chicken satsivi is cloaked in a complex walnut sauce

tinted yellow with marigold petals. “Remember how Geor-

gia was our Sicily?” Mom reminisces—a land of sun, citrus,

inky wines, and epic corruption. I ask for Georgian wine.

“My beauty,” the waiter snorts, “you forget about Moscow’s

embargo on Georgian exports?”

Next day, it’s Ukraine’s turn. We eat more dumplings

(this time, the flat, slithery, sour-cherry vareniki) at ��,

��&��'��2��&�� 0� ��.�� &��)�� (�� )��(��)��3 �� &�� &��1"%��

a faux-farmhouse extravaganza. Animals wander a

glass-enclosed courtyard while waitresses in embroidered

blouses deliver folkloric earthenware pots of robust meaty

borscht, smoked suckling pig, and dense slices of freshly

baked rye bread draped with snow-white petals of that

wholesomely Ukrainian treat: cured lard. Hog-happy,

we keep it Ukrainian the following day at !��$��

��%�. At this raucous, democratically priced Cossack-

themed chain, the food may lack the finesse of Shinok,

but the garlic-studded cold pork, sour-creamed braised

rabbit, and porcini caps pickled with black-currant leaf

are just right with the horseradish-infused vodka. When

we befriend a gaggle of traffic cops here celebrating

someone’s promotion, the convivial policemen draw us

a little chart of how much of a bribe each moving viola-

tion requires. Then they propose an archaic U.S.S.R.

toast. Which is how we end up drinking—and drinking

and drinking—to the friendship of nations. �

��

For 10 great hotels, from a 19th-century manor house to the

Ritz-Carlton on Tverskaya, go to travelandleisure.com.

t+l journal | food

TRAVEL+LEISURE

11

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FOOD & WINEFOOD & WINE

��#��total: 15 min

6 s e r v i n g s

the good news The mangoes in this

jalapeño-spiced salad are full of vitamin

C. Be sure to use firm, underripe fruit: They

add an essential tang to the recipe.

2 very large green (unripe)

mangoes, peeled and cut into

2-by-»-inch batons

» large sweet onion,

sliced lengthwise

1 jalapeño, seeded and

finely chopped

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a bowl, toss the mangoes, onion and

jalapeño with the lime juice. Season with

salt and pepper and serve right away.

serve with Grilled chicken or shrimp.

make ahead The mango salad can be

refrigerated for up to 1 hour.

one serving 52 cal, 0.2 gm fat, 0 gm sat

fat, 13 gm carb, 1.6 gm fiber.

$ ��%��&�� '��(&��)

total: 20 min

6 s e r v i n g s

the good news This healthy take on the

traditional chips-and-salsa combo is nearly

fat-free and super-refreshing. The antioxi-

dant-rich salsa is delicious served right

after it’s made, but the flavors meld nicely

after a day or two in the refrigerator.

1¼ pounds tomatoes, finely chopped

» cup finely chopped sweet onion

» cup finely chopped cilantro

1 small jalapeño, seeded and minced

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice


1 large seedless cucumber,

sliced ¼ inch thick

In a bowl, toss the tomatoes with the onion,

cilantro, jalapeño and lime juice and sea-

son with salt and pepper. Serve the salsa

with the cucumber chips for dipping.

one serving 38 cal, 0.4 gm fat, 0 gm sat

fat, 8 gm carb, 1.5 gm fiber.

*�'��+��%��&��,��

total: 20 min

6 s e r v i n g s

the good news Both the spinach and

the papaya in this wonderfully savory salad

are loaded with folate and vitamins A and

C. The pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top

are a good source of iron.

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons low-sodium

soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon mild curry powder


1¼ pounds peeled, seeded papaya,

cut into 1-inch cubes (4 cups)

10 ounces baby spinach

¼ cup salted roasted pumpkin seeds

In a blender, combine the oil, soy sauce,

honey, vinegar and curry powder and blend

until emulsified. Season the dressing with

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FOOD & WINE

salt and pepper and pour into a large bowl.

Add the papaya and spinach to the dress-

ing and toss well. Sprinkle the salad with

the pumpkin seeds and serve.

one serving 242 cal, 17 gm fat, 2.5 gm

sat fat, 22 gm carb, 4.3 gm fiber.

&� '��&��total: 1 hr

6 s e r v i n g s

the good news Chicken breast adds

plenty of protein but not much fat to this

version of ajiaco, a cilantro-scented chicken

soup that’s virtually Colombia’s national

dish. Stirring in fiber-rich brown rice turns

the soup into a satisfying one-dish meal.

‹ cup short-grain brown rice

1⅓ cups water

Salt

1 whole skinless chicken breast,

on the bone (about 1» pounds)

» cup thinly sliced scallions

(about 3)

2 garlic cloves, smashed

2 shucked ears of corn,

each cut into 6 rounds

» teaspoon ground cumin

» cup plus 2 tablespoons

chopped cilantro

8 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Freshly ground pepper

» pound white potatoes, peeled

and cut into ¾-inch cubes

» pound thick asparagus,

cut into 1-inch lengths

1 Hass avocado, diced

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

fat-free yogurt

1 tablespoon drained small capers

1. In a small saucepan, cover the rice with

the water and bring to a boil. Reduce the

heat, cover and simmer until the rice is

tender, 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from

the heat and let stand for 10 minutes, then

season with salt and fluff with a fork.

2. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, combine

the chicken, scallions, garlic, corn, cumin

and » cup of the cilantro with the chicken

well-being ��

broth. Season with salt and pepper and

bring to a boil. Simmer the broth over mod-

erately high heat until the chicken is cooked

through, about 12 minutes. Transfer the

chicken to a plate and let cool slightly. Pull

the meat off the bones and shred.

3. Strain the broth and return it to the

saucepan. Return the corn to the broth and

discard the remaining solids. Bring the

broth to a boil. Add the potatoes and sim-

mer over moderately high heat until nearly

tender, about 8 minutes. Add the asparagus

and simmer until the potatoes and aspar-

agus are tender, about 5 minutes longer.

Return the shredded chicken to the pot and

season the soup with salt and pepper.

4. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish

with the avocado, yogurt, capers, brown rice

and remaining 2 tablespoons of cilantro.

make ahead The cooked brown rice and

the soup without the garnishes can be

refrigerated separately overnight.

one serving 336 cal, 9.6 gm fat, 2 gm

sat fat, 35 gm carb, 6.6 gm fiber. 2

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Oak—like wine itself—is a fine

thing in moderation. However, many

Chardonnays produced in recent

years have tasted more like vanilla-

saturated wooden planks than like

wine, thanks to a fad for aging white

wines in nothing but new oak barrels.

New oak—as opposed to barrels

that have been used for three or four

vintages and are considered “neutral”—tends to impart

vanilla, caramel, nut and spice notes. New oak, used with

restraint (often in conjunction with older barrels or

stainless steel tanks), can deftly enhance a wine’s overall

character. But used in excess, it can make a wine taste

like wood chips, sawdust and vanilla extract.

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during the war with the machines?—the screenplay shimmies into the upper third of the �� timeline. The year is 2018, things are grim, per usual, and the birth of Connor remains a top priority, although his designated father, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), is still far too young to head back in time to frantically knead Sarah Connor’s breasts in a California motel room (see movie No. 1). Movie No. 4 is all about keep-ing Kyle safe, so that in the future he can serve as Sarah’s sperminator.

Given that the original Terminator is tied up balancing California’s checkbook, McG needed a strong man to do his thing with Connor. (For the five �� inno-cents out there, that varies from attempted mother assassination to kindly protection, depending on the mood of the director.) Australian actor Sam Worthington, who looks something like a young Dennis Quaid, makes an appealing stand-in. He

plays Marcus Wright, a convicted mur-derer who donated his body to science just before getting a lethal injection at San Quentin back in 2003. In 2018, Marcus emerges from a mushroom cloud—nude, naturally—and strides off across the des-ert, looking for whoever it is that was re-sponsible for his rebirth. He’s the movie’s only real mystery, and a good one at that.

Connor might be the Messiah, but Bale plays him as surprisingly soulless, hitting the same dour notes he uses for Batman. He’s expecting his first child with doctor Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard), introduced in �� and played then by Claire Danes. Howard seems to have only half a dozen lines—certainly no more than that register—and she is dull enough to have cyborg potential. The script keeps most of its women silent (there’s even a helpful mute urchin named Star), and when one of them, fighter pilot Blair (Moon Bloodgood), does open her mouth, you wish she hadn’t.

Many devotees complained that �� the first installment that wasn’t directed by Cameron, crudely violat-ed the creator’s intent and messed with the overarching plot. Call me a clod, but I didn’t see it as all that insulting. It may have been overly eager to show off its special effects, but it was entertaining enough in that big, stupid way. The new movie has much more impressive effects and is far more slavish in its homage. (It’s a pleasure to learn that even as a teen, Kyle was using the “Come with me if you want to live” line.) Like the new �� it’s a gift for fans.

But what’s lacking is the sense of emo-tional balance and urgency that the origi-nal �� though just a B movie, was blessed with—the quality that earned it fans in the first place. It was cheesy, but it never pretended to be otherwise. In �� we don’t bother worrying about teenage Kyle; we know he’ll make it. We’re too busy thinking about how cool that stunt was, the one where that body skimmed the river’s surface like a skipping stone.

So McG knows how to slap an audi-ence into awed submission. But at a cer-tain point, you may feel so pummeled that you check out and begin pondering things like the time-travel question. Or when did radiation from nuclear blasts cease to be dangerous to human beings? Or what ex-actly is �� stance on the death penalty? Or how is it that even after the apocalypse, someone is still churning out cute maternity wear and hot leather outfits? Maybe in 25 more years, we’ll get the answers. �

BY MARY POLS

�� Arnold Schwarzenegger first arrived in our present—nude, greasy and heralded by what now seems like a very quaint series of lightning strikes—it was a bad idea to dwell on the time-traveling twist that has him pursuing a target, John Connor, who is still unconceived yet also alive in the future. Better to focus on key information from �� like the fact that a seem-ingly simple statement of intent—“I’ll be back”—is actually quite a nice little joke.

The adult John Connor (Christian Bale) utters the same words in the fourth movie in the franchise, �� but it’s funny only in the context of the origi-nal. ��has no time for jokes. It’s an action movie wrapped in an action movie, with a side of bombing. It is so riveting on a visual and aural level that taking in its dialogue, even though it’s laudably economical (“Where’s the Termi-nator?”), feels akin to being forced to listen to chitchat during an earthquake.

The movie was directed by McG ��, who is staking his claim on the series begun in 1984 by James Cameron. But instead of taking on the big questions that have been bugging us all these years—such as, What’s so great about John Connor, and how did/does/will he save mankind

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The fact that the 2010 RX can beequipped to anticipate certain typesof frontal collisions is prettyimpressive, especially when youthink about how back when youwere born in 1977, the airbag wasconsidered an advanced safetyfeature.

Vehicle shown with optional equipment. ©2009 Lexus.

To see the other ways you helped shape the 2010 RX, visit lexus.com/ALL NEW RX.

THE ALL-NEW 2010 RX.NOW COMPLETELYXINBEIIZED.

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