Uley Review
From Moscowiki
| Uley |
Cuisine: De-Fusion, European
Address: Gasheka ul., 7
Metro: Mayakovskaya
Tel: 797-4333 / 3090
Open Mon - Wed 08:00 - 24:00
Thurs - Fri 08:00 - 02:00, Sat 14:00 - 02:00.
Restaurant is closed.
By David Philip Grant
After a short stroll to Uley which is conveniently located roughly between Mayakovskaya and Barrikadnaya metro stations, my friend and I, found ourselves walking into the doors of the business centre which houses Uley ("hive" in Russian). The entrance to the restaurant is a discreet door just inside the main entrance that somehow beckons you to enter and experience all that lies there-within.
The restaurant's entrance is a sedately lit portal, beyond which lies a dining room that immediately makes you wonder exactly what would be in the menu! There are wonderful mirrors adorning the walls of the restaurant strategically placed to create a feeling of spaciousness and calm. The room itself is split into three main sections: the main dining room with its bar at along one wall, a raised section at one end (where we sat and which affords the diner a view of the whole restaurant) and a lounge area (complete with out-of-place looking hookah pipes) on the far side.
When sitting at your table it is difficult to decide which type of restaurant you are actually in - look down and you are in a traditional, high class restaurant with starched white linen, and a table set in an uncluttered fashion with silver and glassware. Look up and you could be in part of a nightclub or a chill-out lounge with small spotlights and ornaments elegantly suspended from the ceiling. If we had been wondering about the menu prior to our arrival, the decor certainly had us eager to see if it would match the room for its mixture of styles.
The word fusion may conjure up images of atomic reactors or dishes mixing ingredients you would never expect to find together, and at Uley we discovered that, aside from a Japanese section containing Sushi (average price 350 Rbs for 6 rolls, 100 Rbs for Nigri sushi) and Sashimi (average price 500 Rbs), the menu is in small parts rather French in composition, but in the main, has lots of innovative touches entwined in the equation and does indeed partner ingredients that you would not find on the menus of other Moscow restaurants. The French influence (the head chef is French) shows in the fact that quite a few dishes, both starters and main courses, containing Fois-gras and Truffles (just enough to prompt you to think "ah, truffles again"). Secondly however, there is the overriding fusion concept and the menu lists dishes containing such diverse ingredients as Green tea smoked Cod, Barbequed Eel, Figs, Papaya and Wasabi & Champagne sauce. Choosing what to eat was a somewhat arduous task, so we opted for an aperitif of Oloroso Sherry (340Rbs for 100ml) as we weighed up the rival merits of the menu's dishes, all of which sounded eminently delicious. The starters section is divided into the aforementioned Japanese section as well as sections for Cold Entrees & Salad, Hot Entrees and Soups. Some examples of starters are "Iberia ham with baby asparagus, fresh figs, mozzarella tempura and walnut dressing" (420Rbs), "Coconut milk soup with chicken, prawns, galangal root" (a more pungent form of Ginger from Indonesia) and shrimp chips (360Rbs) and "Beefsteak tomato with sorrel and shaved parmesan" (380 Rbs).
While we finished deciding a basket of warm bread rolls (definitely freshly baked) and breadsticks (cold and rather hard) was brought to the table. The brown rolls in particular were delicious with a slightly sweet aftertaste. These came with the obligatory olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
To commence our Uley experience, we decided to share a pre-starter of "6 Fines de Claire #2 oysters with salsa" (650 Rbs). This was served in the traditional manner on a bed of ice with a lemon half, vinegar (not the normal red wine variety and for which there was no spoon) and a very refreshing tasting salsa. The oysters were undoubtedly fresh with that wonderfully invigorating "taste of the sea". My dining companion remarked that they invoked memories of growing up on the Suffolk coast as a child. We decided on the classic accompaniment to oysters - Chablis and ordered the wine offered by the glass (340Rbs for 150ml).
Upon opening the wine list, which is both extensive and expensive (bottles start at around 2000 Rbs going up to 47,000 Rbs for a 1988 Margaux), it was noticeable that the format is rather strange and what's more, could prove confusing to those who are not particularly "up on their wines". While the wine list starts off in the normal way (wines by the glass which average about 350 Rbs), the sections for bottles are divided by country and not by wine type as they often are elsewhere. The bin listings also lack descriptions and taste notes, meaning that were you to fancy an Austrian wine with your fish, you would in fact be ordering one of the world's sweetest dessert wines. Naturally one hopes that the sommeliers are up to the task of advising the clients that need assistance in this area, although we didn't see any evidence of a separate sommelier when we were dining - the person who took our drinks order also served our food.
We then ordered our starters, I selected the interesting sounding (and unfortunately unavailable) "Fois-gras souffl, almond ganache with roasted figs and black truffle ice cream" (520 Rbs) my friend opting for "Seared Blue fin Tuna with spicy sea scallops and almond-citrus Aioli" (590 Rbs). Both of these dishes (and a few others) are printed in boxes on the menu. We took this to signify that they are specialities and were therefore surprised that the former was unavailable. In its place I ordered "Sauteed sea scallops with wasabi-champagne sauce" (600 Rbs). My scallops arrived cooked to perfection in a pool of sauce that was marvellously light and really complemented their delicate flavour well. My friend's tuna had been seared and remained rare inside, and was extremely tender and flavoursome, the scallops in his dish were raw and thinly sliced like sashimi. His opinion was that the fish was fabulous but that the Aioli was overpowering as an accompaniment to the pure taste of the tuna and the scallops.
Seeing that we had still been offered no water, we ordered a 0.8 litre bottle of the one brand that Uley sells "Voss". This water is Norwegian Fjord water and comes in quite possibly the most stylish bottle water in which water has ever been sold. This of course comes at a price - 500 Rbs in the case of Uley! Charging this much for water has always been something of a crime in my view, especially because the waiter failed to tell us (or show us in a menu) the price when we ordered it. Whether this was due to "upselling" or simply in line with the "elitniy" atmosphere is unknown and rather poor form. Consolation came in the fact that the water was at least, properly chilled!
Our orders for main courses were taken at the same time as the starters and our choices of "Marinated duck breast, mango risotto with vegetable and honey jus" (my selection at 740 Rbs) and "T-bone steak grilled in garlic herb butter" (my friend's choice at 850 Rbs) were two main courses in the middle of the pricing spectrum. At the top end there is "Half a fois-gras, roasted spiced apricots with thyme and grilled brioche" (1200 Rbs) and "Grilled beef chateaubriand with burgundy sauce" (1100 Rbs). The lower priced mains include "Roasted lamb tangine with vegetables and spicy caramel" (650 Rbs). With our mains we each ordered a glass of Pinot Noir (again 150ml at 340 Rbs). My friend had wanted Merlot (same price) to go with his steak but we were informed there was none left.
Our dishes arrived as ordered - the steak medium rare and the duck medium. With the dishes from the grill section of the menu, diners also get to select one dish from the vegetable section, in my friend's case this was "Steamed green asparagus with hollandaise" (320 Rbs if ordered separately). I ordered some extra "Spinach sauteed in garlic, ginger and sesame" (210 Rbs) and was both amazed and disappointed that instead of bringing this in addition to the duck dish as I had envisaged, they substituted it for the mango risotto, and this lack of any carbohydrate in my meal left me feeling decidedly hungry even after I'd finished the main course.
The duck however was extremely good, as tender as could be and the accompanying "jus" was a perfect match. Not receiving the risotto notwithstanding, the spinach was actually delicious, the spices gave it an extra dimension and it was also perfectly cooked (not limp in any way). The T-bone steak was also very good meat with a strong beef flavour. That may sound a strange thing to those of you who have recently arrived in Russia, but in my experience, both the meat available in supermarkets and served in some eateries, is not butchered correctly and not hung at all and therefore does not harbour this mature taste. The asparagus was something of a letdown, it was cooked past the al-dente stage and the hollandaise had begun to set en route to our table making the whole thing rather unappetising.
We were given a welcome rest between courses which allowed us to finish the red wine and decide on our dessert choices of "Orange creme brulee, Bailey's ice cream with crispy exotic chips" (420 Rbs) and "My own way of apple tarte tatin, sorbet, financier and caramel sauce" (320 Rbs). The desserts really were also very good, although the tatin could have been slightly sweeter and I couldn't find any evidence of the financier (basically a form of sponge cake) on the plate. The sorbet was a fresh apple concoction that I could have happily eaten another bowl of - served in the shape of an apple with part of a vanilla pod as the stalk. My friend gave his brulee ten out of ten and was highly impressed with the "crispy exotic chip" which transpired to be a wafer-thin, while slice of pineapple that was sugared and was indeed like a crisp!
Possibly due to the earlier mentioned lack of carbohydrate in my meal, I was still slightly hungry after all that, and would have enjoyed sharing some cheeses. Again I was amazed that a restaurant with a French head chef didn??™t list any on the menu! We finished the meal experience with Hennessy XO (1010 Rbs for 50ml) and discussed some ideas about what to write in this review.
The restaurant is in itself an interesting place, but one gets a tiny feeling that it is not really certain what it is trying to be. Is it a French restaurant or a fusion one? Is it for business men and their partners/"secretaries" or for models and the moneyed youth? (There was a mixture of both type of clientele by the time we left and by which time the dining room was full). Is it trying to have a traditional image or a modern, trendy feel? For example the dining room as mentioned is rather traditional, but the trance music playing in the background detracted from the ambiance.
I think that Uley's aim is to be something of a panacea, all things to all people, in order to align the restaurant itself and its clientele with the hugely diverse menu it boasts. They succeed in this well, with the dining room being a mixture of all the above types of customer and the restaurant's decor adding to the fusion feel and generating an air of excitement.
In some small service details however, there was some uncertainty and inconsistency. For example, there was some confusion over which cutlery we needed for our starters (no fish cutlery was given) and some cutlery was not cleared when it should have been. Also, we constantly poured our own water. Perhaps this is an overly pedantic observation by someone who knows this because they have worked in the restaurant industry, but when the bill for two people (without an actual bottle of wine) comes to 8865 Rbs ($305), you do basically expect things to be perfect. It is little points like this that the team at Uley need to address if they want to (once again) really become one of Moscow's talked-about restaurants. They are certainly almost there: the food is extremely good with very interesting dishes, the service friendly and efficient (everyone seemed to speak English) and the restaurant's design is well thought-out, stylish and comfortable. Taking someone to Uley is certainly a sure-fire way to impress, however, one can't help but wonder whether it is just a tad too expensive for what it is offering.
15.11.04.
