BreakFest Festival at "Multikultura".

This year the BreakFest breakfast festival takes place for the ninth time, and this time gastrobistro "Multikultura" is taking part. The venue by chef Anton Tikhiy and restaurateur Maxim Polzikov offers signature breakfasts in which national cuisines weave into one story. The menu reflects not ingredients, as before, but ideas — the chef's approaches to the classics, to locality, to healthy eating, and to personal experiments.

Each of the four breakfasts created for the festival carries its own cultural accent, yet together they precisely reflect the gastrobistro's overall philosophy — combining the culinary traditions of different peoples in one dish. The local option: a croissant, pan-fried in butter following a Spanish recipe, rounded out with granola, farm honey, berries, and NUTELLA® ice cream. The recipe uses nuts from across the country, from pine nuts to almonds, and a strawberry gazpacho gives the dish a summery brightness.

The healthy breakfast is built around a green salad, bringing together juicy sous-vide turkey, a poached egg, broccoli, zucchini, peas, and a mix of salad greens. Everything here is thought out: the variety of textures, the protein-to-fiber ratio, and a light olive-oil-and-lemon dressing. This salad suits anyone who wants to start the day with something light yet filling.

For those drawn to familiar flavors, there's a classic breakfast — cheese pancakes made from baked curd cheese. They're served with berries, honeysuckle jam, and a sour-cream sauce, with soft cream cheese folded into the batter. The result is a familiar but slightly richer dish — like something from childhood, only with a new presentation.

The most unexpected is the signature breakfast: shakshuka with a barrel-pickled cucumber sauce and feta espuma, which Anton rounded out with crab claw meat and grain bread. The base is a tomato sauce with a gentle spice, but the details create the main effect. It's hard to picture this shakshuka in a home kitchen, but at "Multikultura" it feels like a logical continuation of the multinational breakfast idea.

Breakfasts from the festival menu are served daily from 9 a.m. to noon on weekdays, and until 2 p.m. on weekends. "Multikultura" opened recently and immediately positioned itself as a place where what matters isn't just the presentation, but the idea behind every meal. The interior features patterned tile, Azerbaijani rugs, nods to Russian architecture, historic molding, and an open kitchen. All of it helps create the feeling that the guest has walked into a big house where an international family gathers around the table.

The gastrobistro became a continuation of its creators' biographies: Polzikov's family brings together Spanish, Russian, Azerbaijani, and Jewish roots. Anton Tikhiy, for his part, added to these recipes the knowledge gained from international projects and gastronomic travels around Russia. This combination made it possible to create not just a restaurant, but a place where you can genuinely feel how people have breakfast in different corners of the world — not in a fusion format, but with respect for tradition and attention to detail.