Angelina Osyko
Moscow, Russia
ABC Coffee Roasters
ABC is the only place in Moscow you should go if you want to have an excellent coffee brewed to the highest standards. Here you get a smoking hot espresso brewed on rare beans and served in a freezing cold cup to cool it down to the right temperature; several types of alternative coffee from classic V60 to the soft Gina which tastes like Earl Grey; and top notch milk coffees. All this in a stylish minimalist white space with plants, wooden insertions. And, of course, awesome baristas - strongly recommended to ask them for the recs.
Bjorn
Favourite place for a fancy dinner out. Bjorn is a restaurant with so-called new Nordic cuisine, inspired by Scandinavia, it’s nature, minimalistic style and, of course, food. The place feels like you’ve ended up in Stockholm or Oslo, with wooden bears and deer on the walls, timber tables and natural colours. The food is exceptional, from exquisite smorrebrods, hearty vegetables and traditional deer, boar or wolffish dishes. Strongly recommend cocktails and Scandinavian liquors. And! The “ugly chocolate pie” - best dessert in the city.
22cm
Italian food is my lifelong obsession, and Saint Petersburg originated pizzeria 22cm dots the i’s and crosses the t’s of what a real Italian pizza should be. Pizzas are cooked to the traditional Naples recipe, that’s why it’s called 22cm - that’s the diameter of a traditional Naples pizza. Pizzeria has around 2 dozens of classical and modern types, including a new special each month.
Unless you grew up in Eastern Europe or any post-soviet country, Moscow will be quite a shock. It’s not even a mix of Western or Asian cultures; it’s something entirely different. Like any big city, it’s complicated, noisy, fast-paced, crowded, and exhausting: Think of NYC’s rhythm and LA’s traffic jams in a city that looks like an amalgam of Berlin and Beijing. It’s a mixture of soviet and imperial architecture, vast spaces, colossal buildings – a mixture you’ve probably never seen before. It’s a love-or-hate city; there is nothing in the middle. (And no, it doesn’t snow 365 days in a row. Only seven months, tops.)
I was born in Moscow, but always felt a bit out of place. I like to joke that I used to live in England in my previous life. I currently work in the media agency OMD, in digital advertising. I was also fortunate enough to work at Nike in digital marketing on Olympic campaign 2016 in Moscow, and World Cup 2018 campaign in Nike EHQ in Amsterdam. I never thought I’d end up in the digital industry, yet a career of a diplomat after getting a degree in International Relations didn’t seem fitting. And I’m glad it never happened. As for creative passion it is, undoubtedly, photography, and I hope to do it full-time at some point. When I was 17, my parents once gave me a camera, when I they sent me abroad for a language school – several cameras later, but a Canon never left my side ever since.