Alexey Burov

The usual journey for people in our industry goes something like this: the person works in the industry, grows professionally — and ends up being a restaurateur themselves. I didn’t have such an experience and neither did my partner, Pavel Kokkov, who worked with me for 15 years until he left Russia. We never worked in a bar or a restaurant, we simply decided one day that we’ll open our own bar. And several years later we decided to open Russia’s first Belgian beer restaurant.

We visited Belgium and were amazed by the richness of its beer culture: longstanding, sophisticated, with seafood, with beautiful beer, and beautifully dressed people. And so, we decided to bring this concept to St. Petersburg. The place where we opened Trappist was the boondocks of the city. And today, it’s home to all of St. Petersburg’s main restaurants: Birch, Tartarbar, Bourgeois Bohemians, and others.

Before us, beer was sold in Russia in some dark pubs, along with cigarettes and croutons. We brought an amazing collection of glasses, up to 200 glasses for each brand. We brought fresh mussels from the White Sea at a time when the market knew nothing about the concept of farm-to-table. We introduced a different kind of service: friendly, welcoming, easy, open. The typical St. Petersburg service today when you come to the establishment as if it was your home or your friends’ house, not a public catering venue, — it all began with our Trappist.

We continued to travel around the world, the expand our horizons. And in the States, we came across food that was completely insane in terms of taste. Barbeque in the American South is something that’s cooked for a very long time, slowly, on an open fire. And so, we also brought to Russia this concept of Texas BBQ smokers and meat cooking methods. We brought the full technology. We began to manufacture BBQ smokers, reached an agreement with Primebeef that they will make brisket cuts especially for us — now, everyone knows what that is, but back then there wasn’t such thing. That’s how our brand Smoke BBQ was born — first, in St. Petersburg, at Rubinstein Street, and then in Moscow, at Trubnaya Street.

Trappist is already 12 years old, and Smoke BBQ is 8 and going strong. Altogether, I had opened about 20 different projects. The things that I’m doing are quite obvious, but for a long time they didn’t come onto the radar of the classical restaurateurs. A French restaurant, an Italian restaurant, Japanese cuisine — these are classical concepts. But to open Texas BBQ with smoked meats, bourbons, and steaks, or a Belgian brasserie with seafood and mussels — that’s not so classical. The market initially reacted to all of this with a certain degree of skepticism, but in the end, people came around, it got under their skin. The main secret of success is that we choose a very specific niche and dive very deeply.

Dreamteam Hospitality is, first and foremost, a certain ideology, a set of approaches and hospitality standards. These principles form the foundation both of our own projects and those of other people, in which we partake. A group of restaurants, a brewery, consulting, manufacturing of BBQ smokers — these are all different businesses, different teams, but they are united by this common approach. We make products that we ourselves like. And we attract people that we like. And this ensures our constant movement forward.