It’s difficult to imagine a person less in need of a detailed introduction than Arkady Novikov. After all, he is the most famous and successful Russian restaurateur — we’ll say it straight out: number one in the country’s restaurant business. And his arsenal also includes stores of many kinds, greenhouses with his own branded agricultural products, and popular entertainment complexes.

Arkady Novikov was born in Moscow in 1962.

Arkady Novikov: “I matured late, and in school I didn’t even think about who I wanted to be. I read fairy tales until I was 15 years old . . .”

After school, Novikov graduated from Culinary Institute No. 174, and later from the Plekhanov Academy of the National Economy with a degree in the economics of the food-service industry. He began his professional life as a cook at the restaurant Universitetsky, where he worked for around five years. After that, he worked as sous chef at the restaurant Havana and head chef at the restaurant Olimpiisky Ogni (Olympic Lights). In 1990, he became head chef at the Hard Rock Café opened by Stas Naminy at the Green Theater in Gorky Park.

Arkady Novikov: “Before entering culinary school, I didn’t know how to cook, though I loved watching my grandmother cook. But she would chase me out of the kitchen, saying, ‘This is not men’s work!’”

The 90s became the first decade of true success for him. Having been responsible for many original and successful projects, Arkady Novikov has earned the well-deserved reputation of being the city’s first restaurateur.

Arkady Novikov: “When I was a student, everything was very interesting. I buried myself in books, dreamed of cooking something novel. But I doubt anyone back then believed that I would really become someone. Although now, there’s a plaque at my culinary school that reads ‘Arkady Novikov was a student here’.”

In 1992, Arkady Novikov opened his first restaurant, Sirena. The restaurant became Moscow’s first seafood restaurant, introducing Muscovites to the most exotic (for the times) products of the sea. Continuing to operate to this day with the same concept it opened with, Sirena at its beginning became one of the first restaurants to have a qualitatively new approach to food preparation, service, design, and atmosphere. That distinctive class of restaurants of which Sirena was a part laid the foundation for the new, post-Soviet era in the development of the Russian restaurant business.

Arkady Novikov: “Working on that project defined our strategy in many ways. We established for ourselves that perfect cooking is an absolute necessity, but not the only factor in the success of a restaurant. Every one of our subsequent projects was a search for an interesting and always new concept, followed by painstaking work on the realization of our idea.”

It is not without basis that Arkady Novikov is considered the doer of fundamental deeds, landmarks.

One of those landmarks was the 1994 founding of the French restaurant Club T, which many different rankings for many years running called the best French restaurant in Moscow.

In 1996, Novikov founded Tsar’s Hunt (Tsarskaya Okhota), the first post-Soviet restaurant serving Russian cuisine. That same year, a famed luncheon was held there by two presidents: Russian president Boris Yeltsin and the president of France, Jacque Chirac. The restaurant became the city’s calling card, reigniting people’s interest in Russian cuisine.

Arkady Novikov: “At the time, intuition completely replaced marketing. . . . There was such a massive influx of customers to Tsarskaya Okhota that we were forced to close the restaurant and re-do everything. One of the solutions we devised to the problem of taking customers’ orders was the telega—a buffet of appetizers.”

In 1996, a wider audience gained entrée to Novikov’s singular style of restaurants with the opening of Yolki-Palki, the first casual-dining project with a Russian theme. Today, Yolki-Palki is the largest Russian chain of casual-dining restaurants serving Russian cuisine.

Arkady Novikov: “I asked every waiter: ‘What would you like to try in a restaurant? What would make you choose to go to a particular place? What have you not seen yet?’ They told me, and I turned everything I heard into reality.”

The opening of The White Sun of the Desert (Beloye Solntse Pustyni) made important a new genre of restaurants: nostalgia and theme eateries.

In 2002, with the opening of the restaurant Biskvit, yet another trend gained popularity: stylish lounge-restaurants. Vogue Café, Galereya, and Vesna followed.

Arkady Novikov: “How do I know what kind of restaurant to open? Anyone who tries a pot of soup can figure out what it needs—salt or pepper. It’s roughly in that way that I’m able to figure out what kind of restaurant to open and when. If I ever start to make mistakes, to add too little or too much salt, I’ll be done.”

Since only 1992, in partnership with different restaurateurs and investors, Arkady Novikov has created more than 30 different restaurant projects, including Tsar’s Hunt (Tsarskaya Okhota), Sirena, Uzbekistan, Syr, Market, Vanil, Vogue Café, Galereya, Cantinetta Antinori, Biskvit, China Club, Barashka, and the casual-dining chains Yolki-Palki, Little Japan (Malenkaya Yaponiya), Five Star, Sushi Vesla, and Kish Mish.

Arkady Novikov: “People go to ‘a Novikov place’ only the first time—after that, they choose an establishment where they most like the food and the service.”

In 2002, Arkady Novikov organized his own agricultural enterprise, Agronom, at Gorki-10 (Rublyovskoye Highway) and since 2005 has produced and marketed organic fruits and vegetables grown there under the brand NOVIKOV.

Arkady Novikov: “A gourmet dish first and foremost means high-quality products. The ingredients can make a harmonious combination, or they can go against one another. The necessary touches are the sauce, singularly skilled preparation, and elegant plating. Only a chef of a very high level can put all those things together.”

In the summer of 2005, Arkady Novikov took on hosting duties for the reality show Candidate, a joint project with television network TNT and company Junior TV. The project borrows the concept of the American show The Apprentice, which immediately received very high ratings upon its premiere in January 2004. In the Russian version of the reality show, 16 contestants fight for the right to become a senior manager in the Arkady Novikov Group, with a one-year, 15 million-ruble contract.

Arkady Novikov: “I need an intelligent, upright, talented person who is able to organize tasks well. A good manager is a specialist who’s able to make all the right decisions.”

Arkady Novikov is one of the founders and a member of the coordinating council of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers. He is also a winner of the Hospitality 2004 National Award in the category “For personal contribution to the development of the hospitality industry”. He was named a GQ Person of the Year 2004 in the category “Restaurateur of the Year”.

Arkady Novikov: “People often ask me whether I plan on continuing to expand. I always tell myself, ‘Enough. Stop.’ But I just can’t!”