Chef Medeu: 1881 Recipes and Snow Leopards in Almaty's Foothills

Chef Medeu, the second outpost of Almaty's original Chef restaurant, brings an 1881 recipe book to the foothills near the city's high-altitude skating rink. Designed by Alexandra Tsipkun of Tsipkun Interiors, the 112 sq m restaurant evokes a 19th-century country estate, with a main room seating 32 guests around a central communal table. The centerpiece is a 2.6m ceramic fireplace by Svetlana Plotnikova, featuring hand-painted tiles depicting snow leopards, apples, swallows, horses, and poppies. The menu draws on the 1881 cookbook, offering regional dishes like game assortment of roe deer, venison, and saiga antelope, pelmeni with veal and horse meat, and horse rib marinated for 24 hours. Contemporary touches include sous-vide oxtail with 18-hour veal jus. Breakfast features pancakes, gravlax, and red caviar on a silver tray, while a 'happy meal' includes a truffle burger and fresh truffle. Kazakh tea with milk and roasted millet, conifer tea, and house infusions complete the experience. The restaurant is located at 582/3 Kerey-Zhanibek Khandar Street, Almaty, Kazakhstan. The review was written by Sofia de la Cruz, Travel Editor at Wallpaper*, who won Young Arts Journalist of the Year in 2026.