Inner

The restaurant on Pionerskaya is chef Alexey Alexeev's second solo culinary project (Futurist). Inner opens a door onto what matters and what's valued, but hidden. The restaurant took two years to build, filled with meaning and with every detail carefully considered. The space is split into three parts, each playing its own role: the first room has large windows and botanical manuscripts on the ceiling, the second balances austerity with a sense of the sacred, and the third recalls a church refectory.

The restaurant's kitchen is led by Alexey Alexeev himself, who steps away from familiar national boundaries and classic combinations.

Inner's interior is the work of designer Evgenia Uzhegova (Eva, Muse, Insider). The space turned out clean, filled with symbols and metaphors. Frosted glass from the workshop at the Stieglitz Academy of Art and Design pairs with textured wooden stands, a painting by Saint Petersburg artist Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva hangs on the wall, and the open kitchen serves as a kind of altar.

He adds kimchi notes to a tomato ceviche, rounds out chicken broth with bacon wontons, adds anchovies to a green-tomato salsa, and serves a Jerusalem-artichoke-and-pear gratin with a vanilla baked-milk sauce.