August 26, 2009. St Petersburg – Wine Spectator, America's foremost wine publication, for the second consecutive year graced L’Europe restaurant with Award of Excellence. “This restaurant is honored by Wine Spectator for having one of the most outstanding restaurant wine lists in the world”, announced on the plaque.
Wine Spectator is America's leading wine appreciation magazine. According to Wine Spectator, the Award of Excellence is given to restaurants that offer a well-chosen selection of quality producers, along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style. After meeting these basic requirements, wine lists are judged for one of the three award levels: Award of Excellence, Best of Award of Excellence and Grand Award. Among other establishments awarded by Wine Spectator are Orient-Express’ ‘21’ Club in New York and El Olivo Restaurant of Hotel La Residencia in Mallorca; ‘Le Cinq’ of Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris; ‘Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse’ of Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Laureates of “Grand Award” typically offer 1,500 selections or more.
In 2008 Grand Hotel Europe’s L’Europe restaurant joined Wine Spectator awarded restaurants’ list for its dedication to wine. Today L’Europe offers over 367 wine selections. 7400 bottles of superb wine from Grand Hotel Europe cellars present an excellent choice in terms of strength (geographical location), grape varieties, quality and vintages.
“We are updating our wine list regularly according to new tendencies and the world wine market. To present new wines, we organize special “Wine Dinners”. For this occasion we invite our clientele for an exquisite dinner accompanied by the latest wines which crowned restaurant’s wine list. This spring we held a very exclusive wine dinner where vintages starting from 1869 were presented”, says Alexander Dorus, Executive Assistant Manager of Grand Hotel Europe.
The city’s leading gourmet restaurant, L’Europe with its sumptuous interior created by architect Makkenzen in 1905, has a reputation for attracting bankers, businessmen, celebrities, the famous and very famous. The English Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton, the Oscar winning film director Nikita Mikhalkov and Dmitry Nabokov have all dined here. L’Europe restaurant’s menu is dominated by dishes of French cuisine. Chef of the restaurant Alexey Kostichkin was the winner of Russian competition of Bocuse d’Or in 2008. The comprehensive wine list, which includes wines from the world’s finest vineyards, may prove a trial for the indecisive connoisseur. Luckily, consultations with the experienced maitre d’hotel will pay rich dividends. Wine etiquette has been studied in details by the restaurants’ personnel – whoever orders the wine gets to taste it (even if certain visitors are convinced that any lady at the table should act as honorary taster).
