Alexander Rappoport: “You always have to dine like it’s the last time. Exclusive project Posta-Magazine

16.04.2018 09:00

On April 10, with the support of BCS Ultima, a regular meeting of the Jewish business club Solomon.help took place. This time Alexander Rappoport, a restaurateur, lawyer and just a witty person, became his guest.

Ellen Pinchuk, Alexander Rappoport, Denis Gurevich

The event took place in the Smirnov House - a historic mansion, under whose beautiful vaults piano music sounded that evening, business and life were discussed, delicious snacks were tasted. According to the tradition of the club, at the beginning of the evening, a "roll call" was held in the hall. The hosts introduced the most interesting guests and told what they do - such a reception can be a great help in establishing business contacts.

Evgeniy Goltsman

The meeting with Alexander Rappoport was moderated by Ellen Pinchuk, Director of the International Projects Department at Mikhailov & Partners. Thanks to her, the conversation turned out to be easy, interesting and useful. Here are interesting statements by the creator of the most fashionable gastronomic outlets on the map of Moscow.

Ellen Pinchuk

I usually have two breakfasts. I need to eat before going to the gym, otherwise the coach will not let me go there. And for a long time I choked on oatmeal in milk in the morning. But a new trend appeared - to cook porridge in ghee (ghee, for example), and then a completely different life began for me, because it is insanely delicious. And in the second breakfast, I try to taste new dishes in restaurants. Today there were cheesecakes with strawberry jam. Wonderful.

My job is to clearly and rigidly define the concept of the restaurant. I will never open an institution from which you will leave and in one phrase you will not be able to explain what kind of cuisine is in it. Therefore, I write the menu myself: in a Chinese restaurant - for a Chinese chef, in French - for a French one. This does not mean that the dish will end up the way it was originally intended. If the boss wants to make changes - please. But it is important for me that the concept is preserved.

If I am going to create a Thai restaurant, then before that I will visit Thailand many times, read two hundred books and understand exactly why Moscow needs such an institution. Only when it gets really sick, I will create it. And if I don’t feel the cuisine of the country or I understand that this market is busy, I won’t do anything. We, for example, do not have an Italian restaurant, and it is unlikely to appear in the near future. It may arise at the moment when I realize that I have something new to say here.

Alexander Rappoport

My passion for cooking is rather a complex associated with creativity. I grew up with very gifted friends. Someone drew, someone wrote poetry, almost everyone sang. I didn’t know how to do either, or the other, or the third, but unexpectedly for myself I found an amazing way to impress girls. I suddenly realized that you can go to the stove, stand near it for 20 minutes and get the same applause as from playing the guitar. Since then, I have not deviated from this path.

When I started my legal career, I worked a lot in the Union republics, especially in Georgia. And the first dish that I learned how to cook well is called chakapuli. It is brutal, very effective. Now I do it quite rarely, but before that I maniacally forced every person who was nearby to eat chakapuli.

To be successful, we must always go against the mainstream, against the movement of the crowd. This also applies to my business. We have never chosen a place for a restaurant based on traffic, location. Take the same restaurant "Doctor Zhivago". Everyone says: well, listen, the very center, a lot of people, even an idiot will create a profitable institution here. But no one thinks that for 17 years all the restaurants in this place existed for a maximum of one and a half to two years.

We think of any restaurant as a place of destination - we proceed from the fact that people should go to it from any part of Moscow. And everything else is perceived as a bonus: being in a famous hotel, interactive for foreigners, cross-country ability. By the way, we always rely primarily on the local population, on Muscovites. The next level is Russian tourists. If the place is crammed with our people, then foreigners will break into it, pushing everyone aside.

All over the world, the trendiest thing is the paleo diet. It is based on the supposed diet of Paleolithic people. And this means the absence of preservatives, sauces, direct fire, boiling, boiling. Abroad, many restaurants have picked up this trend, I do not exclude that it will come to Moscow.

The united company "Rappoport Restaurants" has existed for about four years, and all the establishments that we created were successful. At times I even felt a little uneasy: I understood that I must stumble sometime. And it happened. We launched two unsuccessful projects in Sochi: very ironic, as it seemed to me, "Mikoyan" and "Chinese letter". The restaurants didn't work, they didn't go. Therefore, I try not to open new places outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg anymore. Because in our business it is necessary to feel people very well, their tastes, mood, way of life. Even the inhabitants of the two capitals are very different, to say nothing of the rest of the country.

When it comes to import substitution, imported marbled beef is often mentioned. I think this is nonsense. Russia has always had excellent meat, except for the last 70-80 years, and now there is a restoration of historical justice rather than import substitution. By the way, another interesting example. Many fashion products make a cycle through the centuries, continents. Let's take the now popular cabbage kale, which girls go crazy over. It is believed that this is a superfood, which contains a record amount of nutrients. All of America is filled with this kale. And you know what it's called there - Russian cabbage! It was grown everywhere in our country even before Peter I. And it was a very popular product until it was supplanted by the more unpretentious white cabbage.

Arkady Novikov is the person who brought me into the profession. He was a client of our law firm, we were then engaged in several large corporate transactions. Arkady knew my manic love for food and offered to become a partner of the Biscuit restaurant, for which I had to come up with a concept, write a menu and then have fun with it. Our cooperation lasted five years.

I constantly go to other people's restaurants, I try everything, I see who did what better than me, I am often convinced that no one. But seriously, I always try to get something useful out of these visits. As soon as an institution opens that everyone starts talking about, I immediately go there. There is probably no trendy restaurant in Moscow that I have not been to.

I often meet people who want to have a restaurant "for the soul", so that it is not necessarily profitable, it only covers the costs. Such a system does not work. A restaurant should be a business, make a profit. Otherwise, the business begins to "eat itself" and becomes a heavy, negative psychological burden.

The names of restaurants are born very differently. Sometimes they are invented by me, sometimes by partners, comrades or during a brainstorm. It happens that the name appears many years before the creation of the restaurant itself. I lived in America for a long time, and a network of Greek institutions called It's Greek to Me is very popular there. opened a restaurant with that name. By the way, there was an idea to make a "Chinese letter", and next to the "Filkin letter" with Russian cuisine. When we discussed this, one of my friends thought for a second and said: "But Bullshit - it will be Korean restaurant".

As for Doctor Zhivago, I wanted to include in the title some kind of symbol of Russia of the 20th century, which would not be politically or otherwise colored. And this option seemed to me ideal, especially given the Oscar-winning film with Omar Sheriff in the title role. By the way, our American friends, laughingly, insisted that we introduce a lobster dish on the menu, which would be called "Omar Sheriff". But we refused.

There are things that you can change, and then you need to actively act. There are some that cannot be influenced in any way. In this case, I prefer to just live, mind my own business and solve problems as they come.

What would I eat for the last meal of my life? It seems to me that one should not think about this, as well as about the last day, a kiss, a look. You just need to have lunch every day like it's the last time, and everything will be fine.

Alexander Rappoport, Vyacheslav Skokov (BCS Ultima)

• You are probably the first to make the price of food an aesthetic category. The high cost of Moscow restaurants has always been an annoying detail that had to be dealt with, and no one wanted to say out loud that paying less is simply more pleasant.

• Yes, I like it when everything impresses: the quality of the food, the decor, the service, the interior, the price. And I put the price at the end, just to emphasize its importance. Three or four years ago, the majority of our public treated money quite calmly - today, even due to the surrounding situation, everyone is watching what they spend and on what. And it is important to find a balance: ideal quality and minimum prices - and good service at the same time. Because if the restaurant "Dr. Zhivago ”will sit crawling, then it will close, as is now happening with many. Therefore, we made a restaurant for the whole family here, so that people would come not from eight o'clock in the evening, but at three, four, five and on weekends with their children.

• They told me here in a big secret that the rent of the premises where Dr. Zhivago, costs 6 million rubles a month. At your food prices, there would have to be about 2,000 people a day there to recoup that kind of rent. Tell me how is this possible? Because from the point of view of mathematics it is unthinkable.

• First: there are some commercial things that I cannot comment on, that is, I will not tell you the exact figure out loud. But I can say for sure that I have absolutely nothing to launder - and that I am definitely going to earn money. The price you mentioned is, to put it mildly, exaggerated.

• How much?

• Well, many times. But the price is really high. And then there is simple mathematics: either you increase the margin inside and get high prices, or you put up with a decrease in your profit margin and then work to increase turnover. Here's the honest truth: in Dr. Zhivago has 110 seats, and for it to work normally, 200 people a day must visit it, and this brings us to a completely comfortable profit. On Saturday-Sunday there are three and even three and a half landings - and two landings on weekdays are completely calm. We in this business, of course, want to earn money, but for me personally, positive emotions are very important. A person comes to a restaurant and, breaking his heart, pays for a bottle of wine that costs 100 dollars in the store, well, figuratively, 1000 - even if he pays this 1000, this will not cause positive emotions in me. I like applause - no more than money, but certainly no less. When a person gets quality food in a beautiful environment and pays little for it - it excites me very much. I really like it, it's a very good way to impress people.

• The second question about Dr. Zhivago", which personally haunts me: why did you break up with Osipenko (Viktor Osipenko, chef of the Composer restaurant, who worked at the National before the opening of Dr. Zhivago. - Note. ed.)? Why did they take Maxim Tarusin? Osipenko obviously cooks no worse, or maybe better? Moreover, Tarusin, who spent quite a lot of time at Izmailovo, was clearly ...
• On the sidelines?

• Not at the top for sure.
• If you were to ask me if I consider Osipenko a good cook, my answer is yes, I do. But let me tell you a cynical thing: I still run my own restaurant, not Ivanov's, Nikolaev's or Osipenko's. And in the chef it is important for me that he be my partner. He must hear me and make the restaurant that I want. What matters to me is not how good he is as a cook - it should be a person who already knows how to cook, but has not yet forgotten how to hear. It is difficult for an accomplished, learned person to listen to someone from the outside. He already knows how to do all this, and it’s difficult to explain to him that I want it differently. It was exactly the same with Osipenko - I realized that we did not hear each other, and the situation in the kitchen was extremely difficult. As for Tarusin, yes, I agree, he was somewhat on the sidelines. But, on the other hand, if a person has gone through such a meat grinder as the Izmailovo hotel, where thousands of people have to be fed a day, then this is a good school. Moreover, he worked there for a year and a half in total, so his skills have not gone away and the settings have not gone astray. I'll be honest: when we met with Maxim, he was experiencing just that rather rare state when ambitions overflow. He had to prove his worth to himself. He is insanely responsible, knows how to work under pressure - on the third day in Dr. Zhivago” 300 people came. I remember when the “Chinese Letter” was launched, there were also such moments - so the kitchen just got up, although it seems like a Chinese chef and cooks quickly. Tarusin's kitchen did not slow down.
• If we talk about your plans in general: as far as I understand, you are going to dounderstandable to everyone, not author's, not special establishments- but only those that can be understood by many people at once?
• I have some kind of illusion that I can feel some common middle receptor that works in most of the Russian population. I feel this receptor, I understand it, and I probably know quite well what it wants right now. And I try to give it to him. Author's cuisine works differently. You need to be able to attract the public to it, do accurate and very sophisticated marketing, and this is clearly not my strongest side. You just need to be aware that you can not be able to do everything in life. It's also important to me that it's interesting. Just yesterday, very worthy people suggested that I open a nightclub - how will I open it? You can make money with a three-star chef, but I'm not interested either, it will be his, the chef's, restaurant, not mine.

• How can you describe the general mechanics of how you make restaurants?

• First, I come up with a concept. Then, in parallel, I look for a chef and write the menu. Perhaps I write the menu even earlier, and this is important, because if the menu is completely written by the chef, then it will be difficult for me later. Even in the "Chinese Letter" I wrote the menu from and to, although then it changed by thirty percent. And in "Brasserie Bridge" it was the same: I did not tell Régis Trigel (the chef of "Brasserie Bridge" and "Arrows", a sophisticated Frenchman who worked with Ducasse. - Note. ed.) what to do, he is a brilliant cook, but I said that I want to see confit, casserole and everything else. I understood that if a professional like Trigel wrote the menu himself, it would be difficult for me to explain to him why something was wrong here. In "Dr. Zhivago" menu was written a month before we started to change anything at all, "Composer" was still working with might and main. "Brasserie Bridge", "Meat Club", "Dr. Zhivago”, “Chinese letter” and Black Thai - it was like that everywhere.

• Do you also have a restaurant in Latvia?

• In Jurmala - Laivas. By the way, things are going hard there - precisely because there is no dialogue between me and the cook. And there, depending on the season, you are dealing with two separate target audiences. In the summer, the restaurant worked brilliantly, because the Moscow public, which I understand, went to the eel and lamprey. But we had an idea not to close the restaurant for the winter, as is usually done in resorts, but to make it a landmark - to show the new Latvian cuisine. We want to make food attractive to everyone - for those who enjoy staring at Red Square, for lamprey lovers and for its haters. So in Laivas we are going to redo a lot now.

• Six restaurants in just over a year - fantastic growth. Tell me, do you feel your influence on the industry as a whole is growing? For example, you signed a recent Memorandum on New Russian Cuisine (you can read and look at the execution of the document at the link. - Note. ed.)?

• No. What is it?

• This is such a common initiative of restaurateurs, chefs and the public that has joined, in fact, "for all the good, against all the bad." It was invented by Igor Bukharov (President of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers. - Note. ed.), the historian of Russian cuisine Pavel Syutkin helped write. TO How do you feel about such collective actions?

• You see, I grew up in the Soviet Union, in Soviet realities, and therefore I am very wary of things adopted by a general vote. I'm afraid of the crowd and I think that you can somehow influence it only by being slightly to the side, and not inside. On the other hand, any attempt to influence the situation within our industry - not a good situation - is amazing. Another question is whether it is possible to influence this situation by signing memorandums. I think not, but who knows. Perhaps someone will read and think. And then there's also the need to realize that if these great local produce and regional recipes become commercially successful, then things will change. And if people continue to go in crowds to places where it is customary to turn up the music and look at the girls walking by, then there will be no sense. The consumer still decides what is right and what is wrong.

• Can you name the people who are now influencing the hospitality industry?

• Not immediately, of course. The first, of course, comes to mind Arkady Anatolyevich (Novikov. - Note. ed.), although its influence on our culinary life has now become much less. Undoubtedly, Mukhin and Kazakov play a big role (Vladimir Mukhin, brand chef of the White Rabbit Family, Anatoly Kazakov, chef of the Selfie restaurant. - Note. ed.). Are we talking about cooks now?

• About those who know how to do something.

• It is impossible not to mention the Berezutsky brothers (Ivan Berezutsky is the chef of PMI Bar in St. Petersburg, Sergey Berezutsky is the chef of the As Is restaurant in Moscow. - Note. ed.). I have my own opinion about them, I can say it.

• Of course, speak!

• Ivan is an accomplished person, and Serezha - well, he is still looking for, getting some prizes, but all the same, the first pulls the second up a little. “As is” for me, well, it’s not a revelation even once, but in PMI it’s an outstanding food, I don’t remember any food that influenced me like that. Another very noticeable guy from Honest Kitchen, Seryozha Eroshenko. And this, by the way, is definitely a trend, right? When chefs start to influence the picture very cool.

• Have you forgotten about Komma?

• It can be treated differently, but Comm is a phenomenon. And like any phenomenon, it has crowds of fans and crowds, to put it mildly, not fans. Today - it's hard for me to say, maybe this is the calm before the storm, I don't know - he has slightly left the Russian culinary scene. By the way, we forgot Dellos. This is the only person who does not stop - Orange 3 appears, something else is about to be, a Michelin star again. Another question is whether our public is ready for these experiments. I have a certain skepticism in relation to "Orange 3" - I, for example, would like to observe its development exclusively from the outside, yes, and God forbid I get involved.

• An uncompromising Finn works there, Sauli Kemppainen.

• By the way, note that not a single project with a foreign chef or even just a franchise has been successful with us if it has not adapted to our realities. No one. Even those who seemed to shoot were then blown away.

• Have you had unsuccessful projects?

• Even two. They are not very remembered, but they were, yes. Here is our Jewish restaurant with Ginza "Zucker" - for various reasons, but failed. There was also the Ginger project, which closed in 2001. It was very painful then. After the closing of Ginger, I did not work in restaurants for 10 years. I cooked for myself, for people, I wrote. But in general, failures are also useful and even necessary.

• Now, having already made six restaurants, are you still afraid of something?

• I can give a speech for fifty minutes about this. I'm afraid of many things, of course. I'm afraid not to catch and not understand, I'm afraid to make a mistake. I'm afraid of external factors, we all live in the same world, and any contact with this world is always scary. A restaurant is a business model, but unlike other types of business, it has a fifth element. Something elusive, absolutely intangible, but very powerful. I don't know what to call it, "soul" is a banal word, let's call it the fifth element. You can feel it or not, but until the restaurant goes, you can’t be sure of it. Here the "Chinese letter" went, everything is fine, but we made this Black Thai - and it's incomprehensible. Beautiful, objectively delicious, I like it, but there is this element that I am most afraid of not catching. By the way, another person who influences restaurant life is Dmitry Zotov, who is “Wing or Leg”. And William Lamberti, yes.

• By the way, how do you feel about hipster restaurants?

• Well, how. We definitely cannot control taste preferences, they just exist. This means that hipster restaurants appear and exist not on their own, but because some part of the population wants it. Another thing is that I personally try to do something more ambitious, to connect the incompatible - the predilections of the near-oligarchic public and the hipster one. For example, you can come to the “Chinese Letter” and see exactly this: both hipsters and literally our political and economic elite are sitting there. When the restaurant was first opened, I was asked: who is it intended for? They pissed me off right away. When I answered that I would mix everyone with everyone, they said: no, this does not work. Yes, absolutely everything works, what a nonsense. They all feel comfortable there. Some like to feel in such an emphatically fashionable environment, others simply do not pay attention. Everything is beautiful, everything is delicious.

Alexander Rappoport met with Alena Peneva at the Meat Club - on the third floor of the Voronezh restaurant

You already have 12 establishments on your account. How did you get into the restaurant business, how did it all begin?

Yes, I didn't go anywhere! Always loved to cook. It seems to me that every person has an unrealized talent, and culinary exploits are one of them. There is an opinion, they say, business, he stood at the stove for 20 minutes - and everyone is delighted. But it would never occur to anyone to decide one day: here I worked as a history teacher, and now I will launch a petrochemical plant. Everyone understands that highly specialized knowledge is needed here. But people have the illusion that they can take and open a restaurant. I had the same thing, the so-called idiot's dream - an idea that haunts and which must be realized. And I strove for it very aggressively: I studied in many culinary schools, went to restaurants all over the world. And when, in the early 2000s, my comrades suggested that I create an institution, I, of course, agreed - I jumped into it, as if into an abyss. So in 2002, Ginger appeared in Moscow. But with him we didn’t really succeed, so then there was a long break. And then Arkady Anatolyevich Novikov, who was then our client (we conducted his transactions as lawyers), found out about my passion - and he had the idea to create something together. So I began to gradually enter into this story.

The Voronezh restaurant occupies four floors of an 18th-century mansion

And what - restaurants are now a profession or a hobby for you?

I have a major. And institutions are both a hobby and a business, so they must work. I have seen many cases where wealthy people opened a restaurant "for themselves", and at some point it began to self-destruct. Therefore, I realized that you need to initially think over the business model.

They say that a restaurateur is literally tied to his own establishments. For example, it seems that Arkady Novikov is present in all his restaurants at the same time. And how are you with this?

As for Arkady Anatolyevich, he is 16 people, each of whom is in the right place at the right time. And I see my mission in creating a concept and its development. I also spend all my time in a restaurant, I am in the kitchen a lot, discussing the menu with the chef. But I am not in operational management. I visit the new institution every day - while it is running in and out on the "technical rails". I do, so to speak, manual and point adjustments. And in the future, in order, for example, to change the kitchen, set new accents, I appear about once a week.

Ribeye steak and aniva oysters

You have very diverse establishments - where do you get so many ideas from?

I follow trends, because the restaurant business is transparent like no other. I carefully observe what is happening in the world in general and in Moscow in particular, in order to understand the general vector of direction. I don’t want to create analogues, it’s important for me to occupy an empty niche, I think it’s easier and more profitable. When we did "Meat Club", such a phrase as "meat restaurant" did not exist. It's the same with French brasseries, Chinese restaurants, Dr. Zhivago” – there were no such places in the capital before us.

You have extensive experience in this area - have you already understood what is most important for the success of the project?

There is no one thing. There are five or ten of them, maybe more. Everything matters! The food, the music, the lighting, the clothes of the waiters, the look of the menu... Although going to a restaurant is becoming more common now, it should remain a mini-holiday. If you find a beautiful place, you are pleasantly surprised by the dishes, and on the right side of the column you see an acceptable figure - the desired effect has been achieved. I try to make restaurants that I would like to go to myself.

The interior of Voronezh is bright and eclectic

What is your favorite project?

Always last. Now Erwin. RiverSeaOcean", before that - "Mandarin. Noodles and Ducks. Now we often open, but never - several establishments at once. It's like falling in love with two or three people at the same time.

A.R .: Now we will probably slow down, we want to move a little in the other direction. When projects are offered, it's hard to stop - it's like a drug. We have taken a few of our "pilots" and will be making mini-luxury chains. Let's say "Dr. Zhivago" cannot be second, but "Chinese letter" - completely. We have restaurants in St. Petersburg, in Latvia, now we are building in Sochi. I don’t know how successful it will be to develop in the regions. You see, even a good restaurateur has failures. Courage is important here - anywhere to try to create something new.

Alexander Rappoport

You have become one of Moscow's main newsmakers: you are constantly opening new restaurants that become popular almost instantly. How do you do it?

I don't know.

Are you not lying?

Look, success is a complicated, capricious thing, one must speak about it very carefully. On the one hand, a restaurant is a business that involves a clear calculation, a financial model, and on the other hand, in this business, probably, 50 percent is occupied by a certain “fifth element”, “sixth sense”, call it whatever you like. Every time I open a restaurant, for the first few days I don’t know and don’t feel whether it worked out or not. Therefore, it is difficult to say what is the absolute key to success in this business. It seems to me a mistake to look for any single point. There are at least six, seven, eight important components that must be successful.

For example?

The concept, the menu, the interior, the music, the clothes of the waiters, the way the tables are lit, the location - by the way, this is one of the least important points for me, although most people think otherwise. To put it more precisely: for me prime location may not be where it may be for many others. Because I try to make a destination restaurant, that is, a restaurant that you need to go to on purpose. I absolutely believe that a location outside the central intersections, a little to the side, can be quite successful. One example is our first "Chinese Letter". It's definitely not a passing street, and it's generally a basement.

It is known that your passion for cooking arose a very long time ago. It turns out that your restaurant expansion has deep roots?

You know, everything you do in life has roots. I was fond of cooking for a long time, and now I started to make restaurants out of the blue. I had timid attempts to get into the restaurant business before - "Ginger" almost 15 years ago. Yes, and the "Meat Club" has already entered the seventh year. Of course, all this smoldered, ripened inside, and now it broke through.

Alexander Rappoport was born in 1959 in Moscow. In 1981 he graduated from the Moscow Law Academy. Holder of four NASD Security Dealers qualifying licenses. Managing partner of the law office "Rappoport and partners". His first restaurant - "Ginger" - opened in 2001 in Moscow. Restaurant projects of Alexander Rappoport: "Brasserie Bridge", "Meat Club", "Chinese Letter. Bar and Food”, Laivas (Jurmala), “Dr. Zhivago", Black Thai, Cook'kareku, Pub Lo Picasso", "Latin Quarter", "Block" (St. Petersburg), "Voronezh", "Mandarin. Noodles and ducks”, “Chinese letter” (Barvikha).

You once said that you graduated from seven culinary schools.

I didn't count, maybe around ten. Cooking school sounds very powerful. In New York, I really studied for two years, went in the evenings. But basically my training lasted for two weeks - either during holidays or on special trips. I once worked as a chef's assistant in a restaurant for two weeks. We had a big legal deal in Hong Kong, and my Chinese colleagues, knowing about my hobby (it was just at the moment when I wanted to open Ginger), arranged this practice for me. Every day at six o'clock in the evening I went to the kitchen of a huge restaurant. By the way, it was a colossal, insanely interesting experience, it changed my idea of ​​Asian cuisine in many ways. It was then that I had the first ideas, which later formed the basis of the "Chinese Letter".

"Chinese letter" (Barvikha)

"Chinese letter" (Barvikha)

"Chinese letter" (Barvikha)

"Chinese letter" (Barvikha)

"Chinese letter" (Barvikha)

"Chinese letter" (Barvikha)

You entered the market at a time of crisis. Did you have doubts?

I believe that only mentally handicapped people do not doubt. Of course, I doubt how. But I really have some kind of illusion, some kind of inner feeling of what can be claimed. And if I make a decision, there are no more doubts. I clearly know that I need to move forward.

How is the concept of a restaurant born?

Differently. She always comes from somewhere. And then a rather chaotic process begins. What you think always turns out differently. You never know where this road will take you. For example, Cook'kareku. The idea came from our CEO, who saw the Benedict chain in Israel, where breakfast is served 24 hours a day, and was completely delighted. We looked at Benedict, looked at other places in the world - for example, all-day breakfast restaurants in New York - but, apart from the concept of "24 hour breakfasts", we have nothing in common with all these establishments. We took a different path - when there is a problem, it needs to be strengthened; when there is an idea, it must be brought to the point of absurdity. I came up with the clock idea and that's how we covered the whole world. (Cook'kareku serves breakfast according to time zones, for example, Kamchatka breakfast time is at 23.00, and Thai breakfast is at 4.00 Moscow time. - Ed.) Plus, there are always accidents. When the project was conceived, we did not have a ready-made team. But we met a talented chef who was able to realize this idea and came up with a lot of new things himself. Or, for example, "Voronezh". I came up with it and knew what I wanted. But in the form in which it turned out, I did not even imagine it. So the creation of a restaurant is a cold calculation, multiplied by a very large amount of improvisation.

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

"Voronezh"

You spoke about the feeling that it will be in demand. What is it based on?

On your own taste preferences? Tasty to me personally or tasteless - this is a criterion not for a professional, but for a consumer. If I don’t like something, it’s not a fact that dozens of other people won’t like it. We have a completely different approach. I think if four people eat the same dish, and one says it's brilliant, and the other three say it's terrible, then everything worked out! What I definitely don't want is for us to have walk-through meals, food that everyone has around every corner. My task is, relatively speaking, for the sake of our Caesar, a person came here from Biryulyovo. Of course, I exaggerate. The bottom line is that this or that dish has its fans. True, you need to be prepared for the fact that a huge number of people will not accept it just as actively. This is fine. The menu should be bright - otherwise it will be nothing. It is important not to sell the dish to someone who does not accept it, and this is already the task of management, the task of the waiters.

What is your role as a chef?

There are two professions: chef and restaurateur - as an artist and manager, artist and impresario. Can they be combined in one person? Of course they can. But I'm a manager, not a chef. And I make my own restaurant, not a chef's restaurant. At the same time, for me the chef is the most important partner. Of course, he must have a technique, a sense of taste - but this is secondary. First of all, it is important for me that a person can hear me, understand my idea and move in the direction that we have spoken. You know, it's like in a pack - he must recognize the leader. And the more such a cook gives me ideas and advice, the easier it will be for me - I don’t have to invent it myself.

What about designers? Do you work with them the same way? Do you have a concept and are you looking for someone to bring it to life?

Yes, there is always an idea, but it is implemented in very different ways. The Voronezh Hall is 90 percent invented by designers. Another thing is that I said what I want - in this case - a sharp Russian theme, but at the same time modern. He said what I wanted in the Library hall, showed me some pictures that I liked. But all the interiors were created by designers, and I rather perceived the product that was offered to me.

And the "Chinese Letter" and "Dr. I saw Zhivago long before they were embodied. When I got to Hollywood Road in Hong Kong 15 years ago, I was smitten with Chinese terracotta. It was so stylish, beautiful - a kind of Modigliani of three thousand years ago. It was from there that the idea of ​​the "Chinese Letter" came from. I made a restaurant, knowing exactly what I want to see there.

I like the Russian avant-garde, early socialist realism - Samokhvalov, Deineka, it seems to me that there is a lot of energy in these works. And I wanted all this to be inside Zhivago. In general, in the interior, all the details are very important. If you have a closet, it should not be empty. If you have a gun, then it should not fire in the last act, but every 15 minutes. Everything should work - this is exactly what we started our conversation with. Everything has to work: the name, the location, the culinary concept, the way the menu looks, what kind of music sounds. I record every track myself.

Dr. Zhivago"

Dr. Zhivago"

Dr. Zhivago"

Dr. Zhivago"

Dr. Zhivago"

For every restaurant?

Anytime and anywhere. I think music is very important. For example, in the "Chinese Letter" I wanted to do something that had never sounded at all. And now I hear this style in other places. By the way, the volume of the music is important. There are situations when she must be quiet, and there are times when she must be loud, and not only in the evening. You come to the big hall in Zhivago at two o'clock in the afternoon, and if the music is playing quietly, then the atmosphere is dead, people can hardly talk, there is no laughter. But then you turn on the music louder, and people begin to speak louder and feel more independent - as if behind a screen.

You said that the central location does not play a major role for you. And yet - "Zhivago", "Voronezh", now you are making an institution in the "European" - how do you manage to find such winning places?

It's still a matter of matching certain points - each place needs the right approach. Look, where Zhivago is located, there has not been a successful restaurant for the previous twelve years. The same applies to the place where Voronezh is located. And as for the "European", I did not have to invent anything, precisely because it is "European". Moreover, as a lazy person, I prefer to exploit what has already been invented before me.

Are you seriously?

Well, of course. I think it's always easier. For "European", due to the specifics of the place, we proposed the concept of a restaurant of European cuisine. A year ago, I had no idea what I would do. Because today there is nothing more annoying - like iron on glass, than the phrase "European cuisine". The first association is poorly cooked pasta. Again, we decided to intensify the problem, took the hits - Viennese schnitzel, ossobuco, niçoise, and so on - brought them, in my opinion, to perfection and made the Grand European Express restaurant. Interior idea - London, Rome, Vienna and Paris stations. As you can see, the concept was invented only based on the location.

When is the opening?

Starting from December, the restaurant will operate in full mode.

It turns out that this is such a pre-holiday gift to all visitors of the "European"?

Many people now come and ask: “What is this attraction for the New Year holidays? Or will it continue to work? This is a gift to everyone - and especially to yourself. If the project is successful, it first of all gives positive emotions to the owner. In general, today such a difficult life that you need to try to do what brings vitamins of joy.

You open a European restaurant. But what about without European cheeses?

If you drive through Italy, you will see that cheeses are a color, but not the mainstay of the cuisine. Yes, we won't have a cheese plate. But we can do without any European products without making any compromises. In order to make ossobuco, there are ingenious Voronezh marble drumsticks. It turns out just an outstanding dish. By the way, no one in Italy makes marbled beef ossobuco.

Do you think Russia can provide itself with food?

I think they are more than enough. Even before all these problems with sanctions arose, we began to buy most of the products here. And the sanctions, it seems to me, give us a rare historical chance to take a close look at what is happening in different parts of the country, to understand that we have fantastic regional cuisines, regional hits, there are delicacies that no one knows. In our restaurants, paradoxically, Russian cuisine is still perceived as a kind of curiosity, a kind of non-standard set. But we live in a country rich in cultural traditions, including culinary ones. I am sure that most restaurants should be Russian. Of course, there may be culinary attractions, but this should always be secondary. A very important question arises - what do we call Russian cuisine. There can be two approaches here. One is more traditional, like in Zhivago. We take a certain recipe that we can rethink, present differently or decorate the dish. Nevertheless, it will be the same herring under a fur coat and the same Olivier salad. And in "Voronezh" - a different approach. We have determined for ourselves that modern Russian cuisine is primarily products that are produced on the territory of our country. We have langoustines from Sakhalin - they are tastier than Mediterranean ones. We have hedgehogs from the Barents Sea, our Black Sea is full of oysters - we just forgot about it. Moreover, cabbage from Tambov is different from cabbage from Omsk - we just don't feel it, we don't understand it. In the same Italy, regional products are cultivated, but we do not. But I think it's extremely interesting. It's trendy, modern. Modern Russian cuisine has enormous potential.

New Years is soon. How are you planning to celebrate?

Absolutely with the family - wife and son. But where and how, I don't know yet. We were thinking of going to Argentina. But as I imagine a 14 hour flight...

How often do you go on gastronomic trips?

Yes. Just had an ingenious trip to the city of Cognac. In fact, I try to turn every trip, even if it's a business trip, into a gastronomic entertainment and make everyone eat at least five times a day - in order to have time to try everything. And it seems to me that a very important point in this general mood is food on the plane. By the way, we are creating a special unit that will deal with in-flight catering.

Perhaps you are planning a new restaurant project?

Yes. Now we will implement a large-scale fish restaurant, following the example of our meat restaurants. Of course, it will be based on Russian products. The place is at the very beginning of Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

Alexander Natanovich Rappoport is a famous Russian and American TV presenter and talented singer and musician. The creative path of this talented person was not easy, fate presented him with many surprises, both pleasant and painful. In the article, we will consider in more detail the biography of our hero, his creative and personal life. The story began 70 years ago in Bulgaria.

Biography

Alexander Rappoport was born on April 1, 1947 in the small Bulgarian town of Kazanlak. During this period, the father of little Sasha served as an officer. Immediately after the birth of a child, the family leaves the country, settling first in Georgia, and then in Russia, settling in Leningrad. From early childhood, the boy dreamed of becoming an actor, but his parents were strongly against such a frivolous profession. At the insistence of his father, Sasha enters the Perm Medical Institute (by the way, at the same time as his father). But even there the desire to become an artist does not fade away. Alexander Rappoport takes an active part in amateur performances of the institute, besides, a guy with a height of 188 cm is taken to the basketball team.

At first, medicine did not attract the young man's interest at all, he listened to lectures half-heartedly, and often had to retake exams. But in the last years, when they began to study psychiatry proper, Sasha became interested, and study began to bring pleasure.

After graduating from the medical institute, Alexander goes to work at a well-known Moscow clinic named after Everything was fine until trouble came to the house.

Escape from the country

In 1980, conscripts come to the clinic to undergo an examination of unsuitability for military service. Alexander did not reveal pathology in the guys and gave a certificate of fitness. For this, the doctor was sentenced to 4 years under a political article. After such an attitude on the part of officials, Alexander Rappoport decides to leave the country.

Due to a lack of funds, the man, along with his son, actually sets off on foot across Europe to Barcelona. On the way, I had to earn extra money by singing on the streets and small part-time jobs. In 1990 he moved to the USA.

Life in America

The first years in the USA of Alexander Rappoport were difficult. I had to work as a taxi driver. Then he additionally studied at Adelfay University, renewing his diploma as a psychotherapist. Even now, when a childhood dream has come true and Alexander Natanovich is actively acting in films, he does not stop working as a doctor. He conducts private individual trainings with people, helping troubled families restore peace and well-being in personal relationships.

TV presenter work

The first author's program of Alexander Rappoport called "Mirror" was released in the USA. There he discussed the psychological problems of modern society. Since then, he was often invited to Russian television, where he took part in such programs as "An Hour Before Midnight", "Men's Territory", "I Want Your Husband", "I Love, I Can't...".

doctor who sings

Alexander Rappoport, like any talented person, has many abilities. A good doctor and a great presenter, it turns out that he is also a great singer. He actively records studio albums, shoots video clips. The first success brought him a song in the style of chanson "Barcelona". In the late 90s, chanson lovers listened to her.

Now Alexander can boast of numerous discs. The success of a talented musician did not go unnoticed in his second homeland. After a number of musical concerts, Alexander Rappoport was invited to the USA to participate in a theatrical production at the Steps Theater. The play "Last Summer in Chulimsk" reminded him of his childhood dream of becoming an artist. After the end of the season, the newly minted actor takes master classes with famous American film industry stars - Al Pacino, Michael Caine and Meryl Streep. After that, Russian directors began to invite Alexander. So he took part in the performances of the Sovremennik Theater with Galina Volchek.

Film work

The film debut took place in 2000 in a film by Russian directors who live in America. But these were small roles. As Alexander himself admits, his first real role as a film actor took place in the film "My Prechistenka". There he embodied the image of the Chekist Kuznetsov. By this time, he was already 50 years old, but, as you can see in the photo, Alexander Rappoport is a very attractive man in appearance, with a beautiful and slender figure, so when Galina, the wife of George Danelia, saw him, she said that such a man simply cannot be not to film.

Many years have passed since then, and Alexander is constantly invited to shoot. At such a mature age, he took part in more than 100 films. In an interview, the actor admits that he still considers medicine to be his main profession, and is closely related to psychiatry. This is the second facet of artists, the ability to transform into their characters, to find an approach to the realization of the image.

Personal life

In the personal life of the actor - complete mutual understanding. The only love of his life, his wife Lyudmila, whom Alexander affectionately calls Luska, has been married to our hero since the age of 18. The couple have two sons and a grandson.

The eldest son, Vyacheslav, works as a manager in the USA. The youngest, Kirill, who walked to Barcelona during the difficult years of his father's life, remained in Spain and is engaged in business. Now he lives with the rest of his family in the United States and runs a small cafe. Kirill married the Russian model and also actress Irina Dmitrakova. And he named his son in honor of his grandfather - Alexander.