Odesa chef Aleksey Menyailov has worked at Klarabara since 2003, spent more than a year cooking on a ship between Istanbul and Odesa and likes Ukrainian cuisine most of all.
I’m 33, and I’ve been working as a cook for 14 years. I’ve worked at Klarabara restaurant since 2003, with short breaks.
I became a cook thanks to my parents. When I started school, my mother noticed that I liked cooking and decided to set me on this path. All children show an interest in certain things. I liked to cook at home: for example, I fried potatoes by myself and decorated them, and my mother decided that I could be a cook.
I studied cooking in Odesa, at College No. 26 (formerly No. 1) on Pushkinskaya Street. My first job was at the Rendezvous café on Mayakovskogo Street, at the corner of Gogolia Street. I don’t know if this café is still there.
I don’t have any particular food preferences. The way I cook for myself may seem strange to others. At home I like, for example, to mix mashed potatoes with buckwheat porridge and add meat gravy and whipped eggs. I like mixtures like that, but my favorite dishes are fried potatoes and roast chicken.
I have two children, a boy and a girl. My daughter is 6.5 and my son is 2.5, and I like to spend my free time with them.
As for signature dishes, I think it’s a rather debatable notion. But I can say I have some: salmon rolled in chicken fillet with almond sauce, and catfish in veal fillet with spinach and berry sauce. I’ve never seen these anywhere else, and I cooked them for our brunches and holidays. I like Ukrainian cuisine most of all.
I like working at Klarabara: it’s interesting, and I like the staff. I’ve had the chance to work as a cook both ashore and at sea. After the Rendezvous café, I worked for more than a year on a passenger and cargo ship sailing between Istanbul and Odesa.
There were interesting episodes at sea involving bad weather and rolling. It was interesting to cook during a storm and then watch people try to eat it.
But in the end I realized that the sea was not for me and that I prefer to stay ashore. Ashore, every day is full of joy, and there are more opportunities for self-improvement and self-fulfillment, since at sea you are rather limited.
In cooking, as perhaps in any profession, it is very important at the start to have a good teacher: someone who can bring you up, make a cook out of you, and shape whether you will be interested in the work or not.
On the ship I had two teachers. One of them instilled a love for the work. He was very strict and sometimes even punished me, so I can say this man brought me up. The second teacher gave me more freedom; he was more easygoing and less strict, so I had to make decisions on my own.
I chose the dish “Sandwich of the Privoz Porter” because it is practically Odesa’s “national dish”. Everybody in Odesa loves kilka. The dish is easy to make but very tasty: curd cheese with basil, kilka fillet and spring onion, served with Mikado tomatoes, Crimean onion and olive oil.
