Anatoly Kazakov on Competition and Gastronomy

What does competition in gastronomy mean? Do you feel it in the market right now, and how does it show up for you?

To my mind, sound — that is, healthy — competition is the opportunity to keep improving your product. Yes, we definitely feel it in the market. And that's a good thing. Since we don't have some huge tourist flow of new people coming into restaurants every day, we work with a certain pool of guests. And we're forced to share them with other restaurants. The only way we compete in the market is by improving our product, how it's perceived, its seasonality, service quality, and the guest experience.

—  What have you managed to do at Gvidon that you didn't do back in the Selfie era?

Look, these projects run in parallel, they're as different as can be in terms of how we position them and what we cook there. So they're two different restaurants with a different philosophy and different cultural codes. Gvidon is a fish-focused, somewhat Frenchified, more classic restaurant, but also maximally seasonal. Selfie is a restaurant with a lot of Russian techniques, Russian flavors, around 90% Russian ingredients, which we spend a huge amount of time and effort sourcing. At Gvidon, I think we managed to pull off a more modern, classic kind of food, the kind I'd want to eat myself every day. In terms of season, that means a lot of great fresh fish, light food.

— Selfie is already 10 years old. Does a restaurant have a shelf life? Is further development possible once everything's already been in place for years?

For me, Selfie is a kind of ideal indicator of a restaurant's longevity, one that develops year after year. Sure, it might seem to some like it gets harder to find motivation to improve your processes, but we try, and we find it. So every day, both me and a large team of people competent in this keep working on its development. Do projects have a shelf life? Look, I think if you treat a restaurant with care, with strong forward momentum, then the concept of a shelf life doesn't really apply to it. A restaurant is a living organism, like geoplastics — it adapts to the times, to demand, and reshapes itself. Of course, if you open a project and change absolutely nothing about it, neither in how it's perceived nor in the spirit of the times, it'll become irrelevant, uninteresting, and close down before long. Our guests grow up, their tastes and views change, so we have to engage with the client, the market, nature, and style in step with the times. If we're talking about style and design — Selfie is done in a modern-classic style, where you can gradually change the furniture and it'll always feel fresh.

— What does a chef get paid for? Is it a fixed salary, a percentage, or do you manage to earn on guest chef events and appearances? 

A chef is always paid for their expertise and their results. The more expertise they have, the more their work is worth. If we're talking about guest appearances or events, then yes, that's a good earning opportunity, both for me and for the chefs who work at each of my restaurants.

— What do you cook at home for dinner? Do you even cook at home much? 

I cook very rarely, because I work a lot and want to spend my time at home connecting with loved ones and raising my kids. But when I do manage to, say, when I want to invite friends over, I cook simple home-style things: seared meat, vegetables, seasonal salads. I don't feel like impressing anyone at home, I just want to feed people well and eat just as well myself.

— I know you're into hockey. Have you been playing since childhood, or did you start relatively recently? Why this particular sport?

I did competitive water polo as a kid. I played some backyard hockey growing up too. And at 30, I decided to pick that up again.

— Do you want your own project as a founder? What would it be like?

In every restaurant I'm involved with, I'm a partner and founder. Everywhere, I work for myself in partnership with the company. So one way or another, I do what I think is right and what I want to do. If we're talking about some entirely separate project, I'm a pragmatist about these things: you have to look at where it would be built, in what era, in what times we'll be living, so it's hard to say without the context of the time.