Past Events

The fourth course at our school we dedicated to our beloved Italy. In the book “These Strange Italians,” Martin Solly writes: “The Italians are obsessed with food. In fact, their whole life revolves around the production, procurement, preparation and, mainly, absorption of food ... First come the “antipasti” (“snacks”), usually at least five, then the first dish (“primo”) - a wide selection of pasta and rice dishes; then the second dish ("secondo") - meat or fish with vegetable side dish…

On a cold, chilly day of Odessa’s damp winter, when whatever you wear the sea wind makes its way to your bones, there is nothing better than eating a plate of hot soup. During this lesson, we prepared three of them: clam chowder, bouillabaisse and tom yum. The most famous soups from three continents: America, Europe and Asia. Chef Alexander Stefoglo taught us how to cook soups and paid a lot of attention to how to present them beautifully. During…

For many years I have been collecting cookbooks. My collection is huge, but for a long time there was not a single book from Ireland. Having visited this country, I brought with me a whole suitcase of local delicacies and cookbooks for my library. Chef Alexander Stefoglo and I, taking recipes from books, made a menu for an Irish lesson. Having decided to tickle the nerves of Odessa natives, we made the fried herring the main course of the lesson.…

Every year in Odessa, a charity diplomatic Christmas fair takes place. Its purpose is to raise funds to help the city. This year they raised money for expensive medical equipment for the city children's hospital. At the fair, we represented France and French cuisine together with the French Alliance, Marquis Christophe de Lacarin, French winemaker from Shabo, and the French restaurant Café Sophie. We cooked French street food - crêpes, and Christophe treated everyone with his wine. By profession, Marquis…

French wine Bourgogne Pinot Noir Vicomte Recolte 2008 Doudet Naudin was like a red thread through our lesson “Food and Wine Synergy”. Chef Ivan Slinko and sommelier Ksenia Yangulova came up with the idea to create a synergy of taste that cannot be achieved by drinking wine and food separately. One and the same wine was in each dish of the lesson. It also accompanied the finished dish. We have cooked: roast beef, baked with cherry tomatoes, mixed salad with…

Haute French cuisine is the highest level of culinary excellence, and can be cooked only by real masters. We decided that the third course of our school will be devoted to “Cuisine Régionale”, a simple home-made meal traditional for any French house. Each lesson we prepared dishes traditional for one of the provinces of France. The full course consisted of 6 classes: Provence, Paris, Lorraine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne. The course was taught by the chef of the French restaurant “Café…

In addition to the standard lessons, we loved to hold non-standard events as well. For example, one of our clients ordered a seminar for doctors from us, which ended with a culinary master class. Andrey Gavrilyuk, the chef of La Veranda restaurant, prepared a special menu: fish and vegetables in tagine and salad with couscous, oranges, and chicken. The guests of the school learned to steam couscous properly so that it was airy and fluffy, to prepare a delicious salad…

We conducted a whole series of lessons at our school together with the finalist of the second season of the popular television project “Hell’s Kitchen” (Ukraine), chef Dmitry Popov. “Hell’s Kitchen” or “Pekelna Kuhnia” is a culinary marathon lasting several weeks, where each participant is tasked to impress the project chef, judges and guests with the culinary masterpieces. Meanwhile, the chef arranges wards of real hell: he throws the dishes in the trash for the slightest flaw, demands perfect quality…

Culinary TV shows are loved not only by adults, but also by children. The finalist of the project “Hell’s Kitchen 2” (Ukraine), chef Dmitry Popov, worked for a whole season at our school. Dmitry is very fond of children and came up with such a fun bright menu that the lesson was interesting not only to children, but also to their mothers. Our students made ladybirds from tomatoes, mice from eggs, mushrooms from cucumbers, owls and bears from sausage, completely…

This summer I travelled to the Greek islands. On the island of Crete, I stayed at the old family-run Avli Hotel, which is part of the Association of Historic Hotels of Europe. His mistress loves to cook, and she organizes Cretan cuisine cooking classes for guests. We decided to repeat everything that she taught me at our school. Chef Dmitry Popov assisted me. We cooked dakos, Cretan salad, saganaki mussels, and for dessert we had Greek yogurt with thyme honey.…