Post-Soviet Russia

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the market was flooded with brightly packaged foreign brands, and Western fast-food chains appeared. Snickers candy bars were sold at kiosks alongside the suddenly old-fashioned-looking hard candies. McDonald’s brought milkshakes to Moscow in 1991 (although the Russians had enjoyed their own version for decades), and Dunkin’ Donuts arrived in 2010, displacing the city’s iconic outdoor doughnut stands. See dunkin’ donuts. But the past was not forgotten. When, in 2000, the Brooklyn-born chef Isaac Correa opened a popular fusion restaurant in Moscow, he called it The Hive. The restaurant’s signature was gorgeous honey presented in sake cups with tea. Harking back to a profligate past was the restaurateur Arkady Novikov’s dessert of “wild” strawberry soup, made from berries grown throughout the winter in greenhouses.