Northern character
The best day was yesterday
In Finland, lohikeitto is as much at home on the family table as it is on a restaurant menu. The fish soup is known for its creamy broth, though Finnish cooks often make it without cream. In Astana, where winter can claim a good half of the calendar, the choice seems obvious. The team at Two Hands credits the capital’s freezing temperatures with inspiring its own version of the Nordic classic. Salmon, tiger prawns, vegetables and cream go into a rich fish broth: the cream softens the flavour, while the prawns lend a touch of restaurant luxury. The result is a study in geography: fish from Norway, a recipe from Finland and Kazakhstan’s weather as the reason to make it. International cooperation, surely.
An Asian affair
On 25 February 1975, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing awarded Paul Bocuse the Légion d’honneur. For the lunch at the Élysée Palace, the celebrated chef devised a soup of truffles and foie gras beneath a dome of puff pastry. As the story goes, the French president wondered how best to eat it. Bocuse’s answer was disarmingly simple: break the crust. The soup came to be known as VGE, after the president’s initials, and the exchange became one of French haute cuisine’s most enduring anecdotes. Half a century later, the idea has found its way to Astana. At Lou Lou, the Élysée soup is built on a rich quail broth, with vegetables, foie gras and touches of truffle. A roux gives it a velvety consistency; overhead, a puff-pastry lid, brushed with egg yolk, is baked to a golden crisp. This is not a faithful reproduction of Bocuse’s recipe, but it preserves the essential pleasure: before the first spoonful, there is a small architectural masterpiece to demolish. One might even feel like the French president, if only for a moment.
A Presidential Lunch
The Ukrainian tradition of cooking borscht entered UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2022, bringing the familiar soup into the international cultural spotlight. Its following, of course, was already well established — as were the debates surrounding it. Among the most enduring: when should it be eaten? Roastbeef makes a persuasive case for the day after. In a restaurant culture devoted to preparing everything at the last possible moment, its «yesterday’s borscht» honours an old domestic wisdom: the soup improves as it rests. Overnight, the vegetables, meat and broth have time to give their flavours to one another. Here, the promise of yesterday’s cooking is an invitation, not a warning.
In Asturias, beans are taken seriously enough for the local faba asturiana to have earned protected geographical status. Competitions are held for the best fabada, and a win can bring a restaurant considerable attention from diners and the press. Fabada itself is not a dish given to compromise: large white beans, meat, chorizo and a long, slow cook. Traditional versions often include blood sausage and pork. At Las Tapas, the interpretation is made with chicken stock, white beans and chorizo. Somewhere between a soup and a stew, it makes a convincing meal in its own right. Spanish cooking, it turns out, can do more than fill a table with little tapas — a single bowl can settle the question of lunch.
Ramen may be synonymous with Japan, but its story begins with Chinese noodles. In Japan, the dish gradually acquired regional styles, a variety of broths and something approaching cult status. So much so that Yokohama has a ramen museum, where its journey from Chinese origins to Japanese culinary stardom is traced. At Buddha-Bar, there is no need to settle on a single tradition: the menu brings together several contemporary variations, including miso, pho bo and tom yum. Each bowl comes with complimentary banchan, the small side dishes usually found on a Korean table. Consider it an Asian summit over a business lunch: China, Japan and Korea, with Thai accents in the mix.
Soup has traditionally been a sit-down affair. At OM, it comes in a cup, ready to take away. The choice is between mushroom and lentil, both made to a deliberately simple recipe: water, vegetables and spices prepared in-house, according to the founders. Cream is added at the final stage, so either soup can be made vegan on request. It is a simple idea: a cup in place of a bowl, a bite on the move instead of a leisurely lunch. One need only get used to the thought that there are other things to drink on the way to work besides an almond-milk cappuccino.
The first course, to take away
An Asturian heavyweight
Photography: restaurant websites and social media; Yandex Maps
English edition by Yevgeniya Yussupova
