Yandex Food presented the Ultima Guide restaurant guide for the first time in St. Petersburg. Dmitry Grozny analyzed the list of 50 institutions that were awarded by the IT giant.
Share“Let’s pretend we’re posing,” a blonde in a low-necked black dress says to her neighbors on the nail table. It is at her that the cameras of secular reporters are directed. At this moment, the crutch, completely covered with shiny silver scales, falls to the floor. The girl instantly picks it up, laughingly declaring: “This is a flying crutch.” Yes, the blonde is the same Lena Letuchaya, who was glorified by the Revizorro program. And somewhere nearby – also blonde – the same Yulia Posh, co-founder of Antiglyants – the main (or at least one of) glamorous telegram channel in the country (in 2020, Yulia became the winner in the ranking of the 30 most promising Russians before 30 years according to Forbes in the “New Media” category). Lena and Yulia are the main socialites at the Ultima Guide presentation ceremony from Yandex Food, which took place in St. Petersburg.
It was rumored on the sidelines that for the sake of the ceremony, which took place in the round boiler room of the Levashovsky bakery, Yandex brought 30 celebrities from Moscow in advance. Overall, this was not only an unusual, but also a very strange restaurant award. Fashionable AI played a key role in it.
Yandex preparation
Back in mid-February, experts received letters from Yandex Food. After clicking on the link, a person learned in particular that “at the first stage, using a neural network that we trained on aggregated data, we formed long lists of establishments.” “Industry professionals and well-known foodies,” of whom the jury was instructed, were to evaluate “350+ restaurants.” The list really turned out to suit every taste (which is good): “Chaikhona Uzgen” coexisted with the expensive French establishment on Krestovsky Island Lou Lou, “Goblin Punch” coexisted with the premium Italian restaurant Percorso, and “U Zakhara” coexisted with “Palkin”.
The possibilities of artificial intelligence are generally limitless, he, in particular, proposed to evaluate the Flying Dutchman restaurant, which does not exist at all: there is a sailboat with that name, but the restaurants that operate on it have different names.
As a result of expert voting, Yandex Food compiled a list of 50 establishments.
Alice&Co
Most of the ceremony guests were representatives of the St. Petersburg restaurant industry. If we adhere to alphabetical order, then the Levashovsky plant, among others, was attended by the creator of the “Noise” cabaret and the “Minutka” chain Artem Balaev, co-founder of the El Copitas bar Igor Zernov, La Biga chef Anton Isakov, owner of the EM restaurant Edik Muradyan, general producer WhereToEat awards Irina Tiusonina, owner of Nordic and Dreva restaurants Nadezhda Tretyakova, restaurateur Antonio Fresa, etc. The food was as varied as the list for expert voting: the tables were decorated with hot dogs with crab, fried smelt, sandwiches with doctor’s sausage, etc.
The ceremony was hosted by Alexander Malich, or rather, it would be more correct to say that he was an assistant that evening. “Thank you Alice, for the first time I’m introduced to (her) voice: it’s exciting,” Alexander began his speech. Alice, that is, the virtual voice assistant from Yandex, continued to be in charge. If she had not been interrupted, this would have been the fastest ceremony in the world, since Alice simply read out a list of 50 establishments in alphabetical order – the laureates did not even need to go on stage. The first on the list was the Bathmen, the last was United Butchers.
Everything could have been over in about 5 minutes, including the opening speeches of Yandex Food CEO Evgeniy Anishchenkov and Ultima Guide consultant Ekaterina Pugacheva, chairman of the jury of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (in 2022 The World’s 50 Best Restaurants left Russia).
However, Alisa was interrupted 4 times to present prizes in the special categories “Warm Welcome”, “Inspires Photos”, “At the Highest Level” and “Ultima Yandex Food Delivery”, in each of which 3 more establishments were awarded.
As a result, the absolute triumph of the ceremony was the DreamTeam restaurant group of Alexey Burov. In total, DreamTeam includes 6 restaurants (not counting the Beer Card boutique bar), and all 6 are included in the Top 50 best establishments! But, in addition, DreamTeam won awards in all 4 special categories! That is, there were 10 awards in total – twice as many as the closest competitor. Fantastic result!
DuoBand came in second place. Among the 50 best were all 5 main establishments of the restaurant group of Dmitry Blinov and Renat Malikov, however, all of them have received many prizes at other awards in recent years. However, DuoBand was not mentioned in any special category.
The champion in the number of awards per establishment was the Percorso restaurant, located at the Four Seasons Hotel – a place in the top 50 plus two special nominations. Exactly the same result was shown by Blackchops, who is part of the DreamTeam.
The last award in the latest special category “Ultima Yandex Food Delivery” was won by the BeefZavod restaurant. “This is actually the strangest award we could receive today. It’s just that we don’t deliver meat, we try not to deliver any food at all,” said Anton Feoktistov, the chef of the BeefZavod restaurant, to the laughter of the audience.
However, everything can be attributed to that same AI. After all, at the very beginning, Alexander Malich warned everyone: “A mathematical model completely independent of protein foods, created with the support of the consulting company Yakov and Partners, calculates the results and compiles the final top 50.”
Pearls
There was still a lot of stuff on the buffet tables. In the semi-darkness of the hall, it’s easy to make a mistake: although the outlines of the objects were very familiar, the color seemed unusual. Just in case, I had to ask the question, what is this?
“Eggs marinated in soy sauce,” answered the very helpful girl.
— Is it worth the risk, what do you think?
– Certainly. They were prepared at Smoke BBQ
– Are you from there?
– No, I’m from Trappist.
For reference, we note that both restaurants are part of DreamTeam…
At the exit, restaurants were given laureate guide plates and “golden” pearls the size of a small core.
—Have you taken your “pearl”? — I asked the chef of the Crevette bistro Oleg Perfilov.
– Here is my pearl! – Oleg answered and pointed to Alena Melnikova, co-founder of the bistro and wife.
Who is included in the Ultima Guide
“Bathhouse attendants”, “Block”, “Russian glass house No. 1”, “Garden”, “Trappist”, “Chef Marusya and Co”, Animals, Askaneli, BeefZavod, Betulla, Birch, Bist, Blackchops Bourgeois Bohemians, Chuck, Crevette, Duo, Duo Asia, EM, Forno Bravo Centrale, Frantsuza Bistrot, Harvest, Il Lago dei Cigni, Jerome, La Biga, La Prosciutteria, Mad, Mama Tuta, Meal, Minerals, Mr. Bo, Nino, Nordic, Ossu, Paloma Cantina, Pame, Percorso, Porto 19, Probka, Recolte, Salone Pasta & Bar, Saro, Sea, Signora, Self Edge Japanese, Smoke BBQ, Tandoor, Tartarbar, Tiger Lily, Ultramen, United Butchers.
Special nominations
“Warm welcome” – Blackchops, Salone Pasta&Bar, United Butchers
“Inspires photography” – Percorso, Blackchops, Garden
“At the highest level” – BoBo, Percorso, Pame
“Ultima Delivery Yandex Food” – Saro, Smoke BBQ, BeefZavod
Tags: Yandex Food presented Ultima Guide restaurant guide time Petersburg restaurants April
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