A working meeting devoted to summarizing the results of the St. Petersburg cuisine project in 2018 and discussing plans for 2019 was held in Smolny on March 28.
The meeting under the leadership of the first Deputy Chairman of the Committee for external relations of St. Petersburg Sergey Markov was attended by the staff of the Committee coordinating the project, and representatives of the partner restaurants of the project: President of the Federation of restaurateurs and hoteliers of the North-West, Leonid Garbar, General Director of the restaurant "Geese-Swans", the managers of restaurant "Palkin", "Dostoevsky", "Metropol", the representatives of restaurants, "Northerner", "Ambassador" and "the Hunting club", as well as media partners of the project.
At the beginning of the meeting, Sergey Markov, first of all, thanked the partners of the project for the enthusiasm, thanks to which all the achievements became possible.
According to S. L. Markov, a number of major events took place in 2018, which made it possible to widely declare the gastronomic phenomenon of St. Petersburg cuisine. In particular, the presentation of the project in the framework of the II International gastronomic festival "Gourmet Days" and in the framework of educational programme "Development of the regional teams" for the 11 subjects of the Northwest Federal district. A new format for education has been established: on the basis of the participating restaurants were held 2 lectures for restaurateurs and just interested in the gastronomy of St. Petersburg, dedicated to the peculiarities and traditions of local cuisine.
In addition, events were held abroad. Thus, St. Petersburg cuisine was presented in the capital of Hungary – Budapest during the official events on the occasion of the transfer of the Northern capital of Russia relay of the European championship in professional skills EuroSkills.
Also last year, about 80 official dinners and receptions on behalf of the Governor and the Government of St. Petersburg were held for officials and delegations using the resources of partner restaurants and providing an opportunity to taste traditional dishes of St. Petersburg cuisine.
Given the serious image component in terms of positioning of the city, information support of the project was organized. So, in March on city billboards, at stations and in subway cars there were advertizing posters – "gastronomic navigators" allowing not only to learn about a phenomenon of the Petersburg cuisine, but also to find on the map of the Northern capital of an institution in which menu traditional dishes are included. These posters are placed on 30 city billboards, 20 stations and 40 carriages of the St. Petersburg metro.
In General, there was an increase in interest in the project, which was reflected, in particular, in a significant increase in the number of visitors to the thematic section on the website of the Committee for external relations of St. Petersburg. In addition, it was noted that at the request of "St. Petersburg cuisine" search engines give the first lines of the website of the Committee for external relations of St. Petersburg. And the Internet portal "Restorating", which is an information partner of the project and specializing in information about restaurants, has created a specialized section dedicated to restaurants-participants of the project.
The second part of the meeting was devoted to the plans for 2019 and discussion of the participants ' proposals.
S. L. Markov announced the plans of the Committee to create a video about the project, as well as the organization of the presentation at the exhibition-fair "St. Petersburg Christmas magic" in nice (France) in December 2019.
Leonid Garbar spoke about the idea of creating an updated collection of recipes of St. Petersburg dishes for restaurateurs of the city and offered to devote "St. Petersburg cuisine" professional competitions among chefs, stating as a test the preparation of specific dishes, such as "sterlet in champagne".
Managing Director of the restaurant "Palkin" Evgeny Kozhukhov expressed the idea of creating a gastronomic route associated with the history of the city and the works of famous painters. He also proposed to organize an exchange of menus or wine lists between restaurants in St. Petersburg and partner cities of the Northern capital in order to increase awareness and attract tourists.
All initiatives will be discussed and worked out in detail.
To continue the meetings, the participants of the project are invited to visit the Museum of St. Petersburg cuisine in the Economic and technological College of nutrition of FSBEI HPE "Spbgteu" (currently – University Polytechnic College).
Reference: the St. Petersburg cuisine project, launched in 2014, is aimed at reviving the culinary traditions of St. Petersburg and promoting our city not only as a cultural but also as a gastronomic capital of Russia.
Materials about the project, a list of participating restaurants, as well as an interactive map are available in the thematic section of the Committee's website: http://kvs.spb.ru/proekty-komiteta/peterburgskaya-kuhnya/.