In October 2010, after a successful launch, the second Martell Gastronomic Art Festival takes place in Kyiv. In Spring 2010, Maison Martell established this unique festival to be run twice a year in Ukraine with renowned French gastronomic institutes, academies and cooking schools officially invited as guests. Their top chefs will prepare and publicly present exclusive dishes representing the heights of contemporary Haute Cuisine Française, jointly with their colleagues from Ukraine’s finest restaurants.

The Festival's mission is to develop gastronomic culture and support for haute cuisine in Ukraine. The project is aimed at well-to-do individuals and gourmets with considerable experience who feel the lack of distinguished original cuisine in Ukrainian restaurants and who are sensitive to opportunities to experience the new in cooking. The concept of the Festival is based on a saying by Marie-Antoine Carême, the great Versailles chef and the founder of Haute cuisine française: «A chef should be an artist!»

As part of the current festival, Kyiv will be visited by professionals from the Ritz Escoffier School of cooking established in 1988 at the Hotel Ritz Paris in honor of two of its great founders: Cesare Ritz and the most famous French chef of all times, Auguste Escoffier.

Maison Martell Cognac and the Hotel Ritz Paris are proud of their histories and of their many achievements. In their own lifetimes, the founders of these legendary brands, Jean Martell and Cesare Ritz, inspired their contemporaries to great art. They had a common vision of luxury, elegance and the ultra-French concept of l’art de vivre. These features join the two great Houses to this day. True to their creative spirit, Maison Martell presented a new version of its famed VSOP brand, the VSOP Ritz Exclusive Edition in 2007, a reminder of the grand golden engravings in one of the most prestigious and elegant hotels in the world, the Ritz on Place Vendôme in Paris.

October 20 through 22, the master-chef and instructor of the Ritz Escoffier School, Adeline Robert, together with chefs from three Kyiv restaurants selected as part of the Official Residence of the Festival, will present special dishes for the Festival: true masterpieces of contemporary gastronomic art with subtle original interpretations.

The uniqueness of these dishes lies in that they have been developed by the Ritz Escoffier master-chef especially to complement and to go with Martel’s various cognacs—VS, VSOP, Cordon Bleu and XO—, demonstrating at the same time the universality of this distinguished drink and revealing its new taste combinations.

Three resident restaurants will hold invitation-only preliminary degustations:

October 20: Turgeneff Restaurant (Nasha Karta brand)
October 21: Terracotta Restaurant (Premier Palace)
October 22: PIAF

Only during the two weeks after the official opening of the Festival, from October 23 through November 5, will the Martell Menu Festival take place on an open basis at these three restaurants. This will include 18 dishes (6 in each), developed by the Ritz Escoffier’s master-chef specifically for each restaurant. Each of the presented dishes will be served with the specific Martell cognac that is considered the best match to the given dish.

Adeline Robert is one of the most promising and most talented chefs in France and is also a master teacher at the Alain Ducasse Formation, an educational center. She also works as Sous-chef to Alain Ducasse at his New York restaurant, Benoit, whose opening and preparation were also organized under her guidance.

Maison Martell is the oldest luxury brand in the world, having established itself as the trendsetter in world gastronomic fashion for the last three centuries. Over these many years, Martell has worked with top chefs in France, who hand-pick their products and ingredients and work with them in such a way as to produce cuisine that ideally goes with cognacs. At Martell headquarters in the city of Cognac, a special master-chef prepares exclusive luncheons and degustations for guests of the Maison based on these recipes. Martell Cognacs are a gastronomical beverage as they are distinguished by their smooth taste, making them the ideal companion to a widest range of dishes.

The First Festival of Gastronomic Arts took place in June 2010 and during the course of this event, specially created dishes for the Festival Menu were prepared at top restaurants in the nation’s capital—Old Zaporizhzhia, Comilfo, the Concord, and April—where nearly 1,800 guests were able to taste them.

Media contact:
Yevhenia Ponomarenko, Media Manager, Pernod Ricard Ukraine
eugenia.ponomarenko@pernod-ricard-ukraine.com

www.martellfestival.com

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