Arslan BerdievCommunity profile

A young talent from St. Petersburg gained prominence in 2016 when Arslan won the regional stage of the prestigious S. Pellegrino Young Chef 2016 competition. At the time, he was a sous chef at the Four Seasons hotel. Later, the chef worked on the St. Petersburg project Percorso, and in 2017, he brought together three young chefs – Tatiana Kryakunova, Alexander Sanzhimitulov, and Murad Berdiev's brother – to open the gastrobar Birch on Kirochnaya Street (directly across from the iconic Duo restaurant). This small chef-owned restaurant, funded by the four chefs, featured a concise menu, intimate seating, and seemingly simple food based on readily available ingredients with a subtle Pan-Asian influence, and it quickly became a sensation. In 2018, Birch was named the Best Restaurant in St. Petersburg by the Wheretoeat awards and won a silver "Palm Branch" in the competition for new restaurant concepts (and also received a special prize from the culinary critics of this awards program). In 2019, Birch ranked third in the all-Russian Wheretoeat ranking, only behind Twins Garden by the Berezhutsky brothers and White Rabbit by Vladimir Mukhin.