Ilja Bruman

Being a victualler I am not a gourmand. J just like to eat good.

Moscow is like Vanity Fair. People here tend to show off much more than they are in reality.

Many restaurants are expensive only due to the fact that they are to be expensive.

I don’t stick to the judgment that the most delicious “Caesar” is served in “Propaganda”. That speaks for the fact that people reckoning so haven’t happened to be in many places to taste it. This is one of my favourite salads and it’s greatly cooked in “Akademia”, “Carreras”, “Balcony” and in many other Moscow places.

I’ve found out that they can’t make proper “Caesar” in St. Pete. All I had to do is just to go and teach them how to cook the thing.

Feeling the trend is what really matters in this business. One is to be aware of people’s expectations from a particular place at a particular time.

When running a new project I get interested in absolutely everything from the point of the idea emerges and designing to the menu pattern and new dishes degustation. Every other issue in business launch is of a crucial importance no matter how small it is.

You know what I once got involved into? My friends and I drank some beer and started picking up pye-dogs in the streets. We brought them home, washed them and fed them with fresh meat from the restaurant.

I just can’t stand eating in the places they serve dull food. I’d rather not eat at all.

Why don’t you eat in “MacDonald’s” if you like to? There’s nothing special about this food. If you order the same kind of stuff like a salad, a roll, a hamburger, myonnaise and pomme friets in a glamorous restaurant you’ll surely get the same but at the higher price.

Ivan Ivanovich has been ringing to the radio for 10 years and asked to play “Valenki”. But once he rang and asked to play “Symphony #3” by Tchaikovsky in the 15th symphony orchestra hand. The answer was: “Ivan Ivanovich, don’t you fuck around and listen to your favourite “Valenki”. This anecdote can completely indicate my attitude towards gourmand inclinations.

What I hate most about the restaurant business is theft and slapdash attitude of the staff. I have to constantly conquer it.

People are to be neat in appearance. I don’t like people wearing dirty clothes and shoes.

Am I conquering overweight? I am constantly doing. I am somewhat inclinable to corpulence and my weight is always shifting between another 20 kilos. I am blessed to have a strong will. Well, to say no to potatoes was the most difficult.

I always try to order according to the menu in my restaurants. That helps me to pace the quality of the dishes served.

Once when I was in my restaurant and felt like eating something new I was served a shawarma. When my friends learnt about it they started to order the same.

One must do one’s best to gain the most by one’s own and not through somebody’s else.

At the age of 18 my friends and me drove from London to Scotland and I can say that it was the most amusing adventure of mine. The police tried to arrest us, then we were served a wonderful dinner in a Scottish castle to say nothing of the gorgeous landscapes all along the trip.

Having found themselves in a restaurant, people do not get that a great number of people work to serve them. About 40 people work to serve a customer with only one “Caesar”.

The average dish split in Moscow makes around 300%.

Life presents itself a festival with rare negatives to disturb.

I do my best to give people the maximum but I will never cross my own.

I swear a lot and reckon that it’s a necessary thing to do. It’s highly expressive and adds fun.

Prostitution is to be legalized. There are whorehouses all over but the State gets nothing from them. It’s just another kind of job but it’s not run by revenue services.

Any kind of education does make sense but one should always read books as well. Once you cease reading you start degrading.

As every normal person I’ve got complexes. I always figure out something I am not satisfied about myself. And that is a sensible thing to do as that makes a person improve and strive for perfection.

Many people think that there’s nothing more simple that my hairdo. But shaving stands for a hard labor too! That takes much longer than just setting hair before you start off. This process takes me about half an hour.