Tucked on the third floor of the casino Europa building, just a minute’s walk from the Pushkinsky movie theater, is one of the top little secrets in the city: Shokolad (Chocolate). Russian and foreign guests have been eating at the gorgeously designed Shokolad since it opened this February, and it’s always been excellent for moderately priced European food and friendly, efficient service. One of the co-owners and a chef himself Anatoly Lyapidevsky, is one of the reasons why Shokolod is so popular, the other, is Chef Frederic Hennin.
When French chef Hennin, 40, worked at the French Embassy in Moscow, he managed to show his culinary worth so brightly, that 10 days after he was hired, the ambassador who used to approve each typically French bourgeois dish made in the embassy’s kitchen, came up to Hennin, saying "You cook so well, that you needn’t my approval anymore. Just cook whatever you want!"
At Shokolad the talented Hennin is also given a culinary carte blanche. "It’s very difficult to start up a restaurant from scratch, when everyone has his/her own interesting opinions, ideas, projects, and you have to make the right choices almost every minute. But I must say, that the team of professionals from Shokolad is just fabulous! It’s the first time I’m lucky to cooperate with people who don’t impose anything at all on me."

What’s so special about French cuisine that it has managed to set international standards for fine dining?
I’ve been living in Moscow for years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that French cuisine in Russia has taken the most interesting turn. It is again in vogue these days because it has managed to bring together some famous traditional French culinary influences with hints of cosmopolitanism. There is no Western cuisine that hasn’t adopted some French methods of preparing food, including the terminology to go with it.

What’s so peculiar about the French approach to dining?
The French have a completely different approach to dining than do all other people. French cuisine is famous for its dining order, dividing a meal into five to 10 courses, with long breaks between the courses. Eating the French way takes time, but it pays you back in regard to your unique culinary experience. The French dine out not only for the sake of good food, but also in order to embark on a culinary adventure, which is why they are always curious foodwise. The French are always on a search for something unusual in contemporary cooking and dining. I think nowhere else there are as many people going to first-class "haute couture" restaurants just to satisfy their growing curiosity as in France. According to French public opinion polls, the worst among the so-called cerebral society are not those who have failed to read philosophical books or can’t see any difference between the two greatest painters Monet and Manet, but those who are not well grounded in fine cuisine. A French gourmet will rather excuse a person who doesn’t care for his/her looks than someone who doesn’t care for what and where he/she eats.

Can you classify French sauces?
In a nutshell, the most basic classifications of French sauces are fish and meat sauces; butter sauces, white sauces, and brown sauces. Authentic French sauces shape the essence of French cuisine, and they have always been more elegant and seductive in taste than sauces in the rest of the world. They essentially owe their rarity to two major irreplaceable ingredients: cream and wine. Other common ingredients are meat or fish stock, butter, flour, tomatoes, carrots, onions, bacon, thyme and bay leaf.

French cuisine is said to be very complicated. Can it be more or less simple?
Certainly. The basis of French cuisine is very simple. French cooking is not as monolith as it seems. It has many regional differences and influences. Each region in France boasts its own specialty. But as soon as some simple French delicacies are fetched up by the Parisian restaurants, most of them immediately become more complicated and sophisticated to satisfy the city’s gourmets. As for me, I’m an advocate of simple dishes. I don’t like it when a dish is overfilled with too many ingredients that are in the way to appreciate the natural taste of the food.

At Shokolad, did you put the main emphasis on fish or on meat dishes to satisfy Russian gourmets?
Russians are in fact not gourmets, but gourmands. They are anxious to eat almost anything you offer them, and it’s easy to see why. They have been isolated from the whole world, and nothing new could get through the tough Iron Curtain. So nowadays, Russian people are doing their best to make up for the years of "culinary abstention." Contrary to popular belief, Russians revel in fish as mush as they revel in meat. Therefore, my menu at Shokolad reflects both meat and fish dishes. Actually, in French cuisine, a much wider range of meats is used than in other European cuisines. This includes duck, goose, turkey, lamb, a lot of game like hare, domesticated rabbit, wild boar, roe, etc. However, French cuisine has elaborated one of the most famous and popular fish recipes in the world – bouillabaisse. And believe me, the recipe for that soup is amazingly simple. •