Andrey Shmakov: From Tallinn to a Michelin Star

When Andrey Shmakov recalls how it all began, he doesn't talk about culinary schools — he talks about the galley of a gas carrier. The ship's mechanic diploma he earned at a Tallinn maritime college turned out to be useless — the year ninety-two was upending biographies faster than people could make plans. The only job available to the twenty-year-old graduate was steward on a cargo ship. Eight years shuttling between Baltic ports: peeling potatoes for the crew, night shifts, lessons from the ship's cook. By the time he came ashore for good, Shmakov was already running the kitchen of a cruise liner on the Klaipėda–Kiel route.

"There's no formula for the perfect dish. There's the ingredient, there's the season, and there's an honest approach — everything else is secondary." — Andrey Shmakov

Dry land greeted him without illusions. Shmakov took over the kitchen at Tallinn's Kadriorg — and realized he knew nothing about Italian cuisine. The solution was characteristic: he went off to Piedmont and Liguria, got himself into local restaurants unpaid but with the right to learn. The experience he brought back turned Kadriorg into one of the most talked-about places in the Estonian capital for the next eight years.

Then came St. Petersburg's "Lapland," an early experiment with Nordic cuisine, Tallinn's Le Bonaparte and RIBE, and short but substantial internships under René Redzepi at Copenhagen's Noma and at Helsinki's Chez Dominique. Between the big projects, Shmakov tried building his own: an intimate café, a gastropub with signature starters, an oyster bar. Not all of them survived, but each one added to his understanding of how the restaurant business works from the inside.

The turning point came in thirteen, when Andrey Shmakov received an offer to head the kitchen at Moscow's "Metropol." Together with Arkady Novikov, he built the concept for Savva — a restaurant devoted to Russian cuisine, but reassembled in modern logic: seasonal ingredients, farm deliveries, vegetables and greens at the center of the plate. The project took its name from Savva Mamontov, the patron of the arts who once shaped the whole look of the neighborhood around the Bolshoi Theatre.

Guide Gault&Millau awarded "Savva" four toques and named Shmakov the capital's best Executive Chef. La Liste has repeatedly included the project in its worldwide roundup of top restaurants. In the fall of twenty-one, Savva won a Michelin star. By twenty-five, the restaurant consistently holds the top spots in the WHERETOEAT rankings — both Moscow's and Russia's nationwide — and has been recognized with three Russian Wine Awards stars.

A television career developed alongside it: "MasterChef. Kids" on STS, "Chefs on Wheels" on Channel One, "Becoming a Chef." A three-time winner of the "Chef of the Year" award. Curator of the culinary program at the Stanfood Academy. At the end of twenty-three, Shmakov brought a side dream to life — snack bar "Shmak" on Lubyansky Proyezd: twenty-two seats, signature sandwiches, and rock 'n' roll instead of white tablecloths. In the fall of twenty-five, he became a co-owner of Riva in Tallinn — the city he set sail from on his first voyage thirty years ago.

Three decades, several countries, a career reset more than once. One thing has stayed constant: Andrey Shmakov still believes the ingredient matters more than technique, and honest plating matters more than showy plating.