VIKTOR LOBZIN, PA-PAELLA

The new hero of our column is the chef of the authentic Spanish restaurant Pa-paella, Viktor Lobzin. He told us about his story of becoming a chef and all the secrets of making the right paella.

Tell us a little about yourself: what brought you to this profession?

Love for work and desire to cook deliciously from early childhood. I was always fascinated when people were chopping something on TV, looking at the camera and not at their hands - it was a mystery to me how this happened. Something bordering on science fiction, like a flight to Mars.

Even at school, I told my sisters that I wanted to become a cook, but they dissuaded me, saying that this is not a profession, go learn something good. And it so happened that during the holidays I decided to work part-time, and the opportunity arose to work in the kitchen - they hired me without any education. When they started showing and telling me everything, I realized that they couldn’t tear me away from there, and for 15 years now I still haven’t been able to tear myself away.

I started as a chef's assistant, then I was a cook, a sous chef, I went through all the ranks and eventually became a chef. Moreover, I didn’t want to be a chef so much as I wanted to influence what was happening around me and not cook from dictation.

Having found myself in the kitchen by accident, at some point I came to my senses and realized that I had risen to become a cook at one of the Italian Novikov restaurants. Then I decided that I still needed a certificate of education and went to study at Tsaritsyn College.

How did you start working at Pa Paella?

Before that, I worked with a Spaniard for many years, traveled around Spain, became inspired by Spanish cuisine and wanted to open my own restaurant, which would be dominated by paella.

What is interesting about the restaurant? Tell us more about its concept?

In addition to the fact that we have 8 types of paella, we have an extensive Spanish menu, we are supported by the community of Spaniards living in Moscow, they regularly come to eat with us and associate us with the only authentic Spanish restaurant in the city. They even want to come up with some kind of diploma for us - before there was no one to come up with.

I like Spain, I go there often, and the idea of this restaurant is to recreate that relaxed atmosphere typical of Spanish restaurants, where the chef can go into the room, take an order himself, and listen to criticism. So do we: we know most of our guests very well. We offer a format where there is no tension, where you can have a tasty and simple time. It seems to me that in Moscow such a story occurs rarely, if at all. I think that we did what we originally wanted - as I imagined the restaurant, that’s how it turned out.

Do you cook classic dishes or follow modern trends? Do you experiment in the kitchen?

The dominant number of dishes, of course, are focused on authenticity. When they ask whether our Valencian paella, for example, is authentic or adapted for a Russian guest, I, as a cook, can say this: the adapted dish is no longer authentic - you either need to change the name or correspond to the original. Paella is prepared according to all the rules. I traveled a lot specifically to specialized restaurants and studied traditional recipes, watched how the Spaniards themselves prepare it, and our main menu is authentic.

Of course, like any other chef, I am a bit of an anarchist and love experiments, but at Pa-paella we cook according to classic proven recipes.

Are there any special features in preparing paella? Are utensils important?

I'll start from afar. I am often invited to events to cook paella in a large frying pan, and it always attracts so much attention, as if you were actually having a holiday. And sometimes guests share their own experience of preparing it - they cook it in a frying pan, in a cauldron, bake it, to which I answer that paella, like any other classic dish, besides the combination of flavors, also has a cooking technology. That is, if we take the ingredients for paella and cook it in a cauldron, closing it with a lid, we will get a combination of the flavors of paella, but the technology for preparing pilaf; if we take the ingredients for pilaf, but cook in a large frying pan for paella, we will have the taste of pilaf , but paella technology. In short, an integral part of preparing paella is a specific “paella” frying pan, which is made at the factory specifically for paella.

If we are talking about Valencian paella, then there is only one recipe. If you add some additional ingredients, then it is no longer Valencian. If there is no rabbit in it, it is not Valencian, if there is no chicken, no tomatoes, it is not Valencian, if there are no legumes, it is not Valencian, if there are peppers, onions, garlic, it is also not Valencianand I. Valencian paella is a specific set of ingredients. Valencians, in principle, add the word paella to only one dish, which is prepared from rice, chicken, rabbit, tomatoes, rice, turmeric, paprika, saffron, legumes, rosemary and fried in olive oil. Artichokes may also be added in season.

What is special about paellera?

The shape, the thickness of the metal and the metal itself. Paella is a traditional Spanish dish based on rice. The first paella was cooked outdoors over an open fire on a piece of metal found in a field, the edges of which were bent to be used as a frying pan. To ensure that the paella cooks evenly, it is spread over the pan - if the layer is too large, the bottom will burn and the top will remain raw. When preparing paella, it is allowed to have a crack when the paella is slightly burnt - once upon a time people just needed to eat, but now this is an integral part of preparing paella.

Paella is prepared with pieces of bones, it is all eaten with a spoon and hands directly from the frying pan, and that same crackling is very important. If the frying pan is designed for 30 people, then the dish, of course, is laid out on plates, and the guests can ask for more crackling, less rice, more meat... By the way, when Russians eat something with rice, they say that there is not enough meat, but The Spaniards, on the contrary, say that there is not enough rice. And here, of course, I cook in my own proportions.

So, modern frying pans repeat the shape of that same piece of metal, of course, no one bends them by hand, this is done at the factory, but the metal itself is exactly the same as in the first recipe - steel that rusts, and the rust and taste of metal is also an integral part of taste. I studied this question as best I could, turned to friends, professors, doctors who can clearly answer how this affects health, double-checked it many times, and the answer was no. And if, when cutting fresh bread, the metallic taste left on the slices from the knife is not very good, for paella it is like a classic spice. And the classic paellera, no matter how you wash it in the kitchen, no matter how you wipe it, begins to corrode. To slow down this process, paellera is rubbed with oil, but this is not a reason not to cook with it. Even if I see corrosion on a frying pan when I buy it, I don’t think about it, I just wash and polish it thoroughly before using it. Today there are a lot of interesting things - there is Teflon and various non-stick coatings, but traditionally paella is cooked on an iron frying pan, which rusts with a click. And believe me, no one in Spain throws away such frying pans - they cook endlessly in them.

Surely guests also notice this; does it happen that they react negatively? Can a guest's opinion influence your decision about a menu item or recipe change?

We don’t just have a restaurant, we love our guests very much and communicate with them regularly, so their opinion is of course important to us, sometimes we treat our guests to new items that are not yet on the menu. And if I hear that something is wrong, then of course I’ll think about it. It happens that guests try different types of paella, and, for example, they like it better with seafood than with meat, but this is a matter of taste and always happens in a friendly context.

Is it difficult to come up with new dishes? What guides you when working on the menu, what inspires you?

A gentleman is a gentleman 24 hours a day, the same thing happens when a person loves his job. It doesn’t happen that I came home and suddenly switched from the kitchen to something else; I don’t think about fatigue. Of course, sometimes I’m in a bad mood, and then it’s difficult to come up with something, but in general I don’t experience any difficulties. On the other hand, the work of a chef has many difficulties associated with management, building a system in the kitchen, and paperwork, especially when it is new. Then yes, sometimes you feel overload - it can be physically difficult. Once you have restructured and all the work has been streamlined, it’s easy to come up with something new. Of course, books, trips abroad and communication with friends and chefs inspire. You can get information from anywhere - you saw painted tomatoes or a beautiful plate, and your imagination immediately drew some combination of flavors in your head.

My friend and I discussed the point that if you cook when you’re hungry, you’re putting in extra effort, and sometimes I might deliberately not eat in order to provoke myself into cooking something new.

Do you have any favorite ingredients that you're especially excited to use?

For me this is a very abstract question. I think there should be harmony in everything - I have a “favorite” -that's about all. I believe that anything that can add flavor to a dish is something of genius. If we draw an analogy with an artist, then anything can be done on a blank canvas, and basic products are just such a backdrop. For example, boiled potatoes are just potatoes, but once you add fried onions, garlic and mushrooms, it’s already a dish. A dish can be given a million shades, and I love what can be complemented, “movable” ingredients. If you compare me with an artist, then I am the artist whose favorite colors are everything.

Garlic, for example, is vulgar in large quantities, but if you add just a little, it will enhance the taste of almost any dish. In Spain there is even a joke that garlic doesn’t go well except in dessert, and in some regions they prefer olive oil with garlic and parsley to any sauce - for fish, for meat, for everything.

Again, depending on whether I'm cooking in the winter, summer, spring or fall, everything changes due to the seasonality of the products. In Spain there is such a thing as winter and summer Valencian paella, which means that it either contains artichokes or does not. This is due to the season - they appeared, and they are in the paella, disappeared, and they are not. But, for example, large beans of a certain variety in the form of young pods are added to Valencian paella, and when the season ends, dry ones are used. It’s the same for me, if there is a shortage in a product, then I work with something else.

How relevant is seasonality to Spanish cuisine in general? Do you have a seasonal menu?

Seasonality is important. When the season comes, products that have not been there for a long time appear - new, fresh and tasty. For example, a tomato in season has a special aroma and taste, but winter tomatoes grown in greenhouses do not. Not only such products are associated with seasonality, but also what you want to eat, for example, in Russia in winter, hardly anyone wants ice-cold gazpacho - as a rule, they want something hot, maybe spicy, aromatic, piquant, more meat, and in the summer I want more vegetables. Of course it's important.

How do you approach choosing cookware? Does it influence your menu and presentation?

You need to understand that if I cook paella, then paella is an integral part of it. It’s like a cauldron for pilaf - it’s impossible to separate them, so I don’t really choose the dishes here, they’re what they should be - that’s what I serve in: it’s tastier to eat from the frying pan itself, and I suggest that guests do just that. It makes sense, people eat it all together, and I think that's what brings it together. This speaks, in my opinion, of trust and unity.

If we are talking about some beautiful food, about dishes that I myself invented, then, of course, everything is important from the decoration to what this plate is on. I select plates specifically for what I want to cook.

You said that work is a pleasure for you, but there are certainly difficult moments, what is the most difficult thing about work for you?

The most difficult thing is working with papers, routine work, where you need to sit down and do monotonous work. But I can’t call it my least favorite thing: if I understand that it’s directly related to food, I’m ready to do it, but for myself I consider it not the most important part of the work.

And the most pleasant?

And the best part is satisfied guests. When you see the result of your work in the form of satisfied guests, in the form of satisfied employees, this is also a very important moment for me. When you have people who just work, want to go home quickly and are looking forward to the day off - this is one story, but when a person comes and sincerely devotes himself to his work as to his family and friends, I think this is more correct and more interesting. I like the feeling that my team and I are doing something good, we are all family and friends, and not just worked and left.

If we talk about the team, then, as a rule, the chefs are men, why do you think this is so?

First of all, because it is physically hard work - pots, boilers, it’s hot in the kitchen, and as in any hard work, men predominate here. I think that's the point. I’m not ready to say that men cook better or tastier, although the fact that there are more male chefs is a fact, as are drivers and pilots. I believe that this is due to physical labor. Sometimes it feels like you've spent the whole day at the gym.

What do you need to do to become a professional in your field?

For me, restaurant history is a large, cohesive mechanism. If a person does not have the desire to become a chef, then one can develop in gastronomy while at home - buy equipment and practice. And if you want to enter the profession, then you need not only to love cooking, but also to love people, to love communicating with itand people, love your guests, be able to accept criticism and treat it as something necessary and important. But we must not forget about praise - it stimulates just as much as criticism. Praise makes you push forward with even greater dedication.

I think that without love for your work it is impossible to do anything. But besides love, of course, you need constant development, the desire to improve. Moreover, now there are many opportunities to develop.