El

«El» is a European and Russian cuisine restaurant on Shpalernaya Street in St. Petersburg, founded in 2012. It occupies an old St. Petersburg apartment in a historic location on the Moika River embankment. Architect Mikhail Barkhin built the interior around an open kitchen, filling the space with objects that could belong equally to a scholar's study or an art historian's workshop. The restaurant's main feature is an English cast-iron AGA stove, which runs continuously and serves as the center of the entire kitchen. «El» is among the few restaurants in the world that cook on such a stove. Since 2013, the restaurant's brand chef has been Olesya Drobot, who compares what happens here to a theatrical performance: the open kitchen with no boundary from the dining room, copper cookware on the walls, and the stove at the center of the action create a distinctive stage-like effect. The menu is built around set menus that change every three months. Over the years, the restaurant has amassed more than eight hundred recipes, which have formed the basis of dozens of seasonal sets. The current offering, for example, includes sorrel cream with squid and smoked bone marrow mousse with red caviar, rhubarb, and cucumber. The average check at the restaurant is 3,500 rubles.