15 May 14:44
The national gastronomic festival “First in Space,” dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the first manned flight into space, has ended in Russia. Over the course of a month, 70 restaurants and 52 chefs from 18 cities across the country created special gastronomic sets inspired by space, the history of the exploration of the Universe and the people who made flights possible.
The project was created by the State Corporation “Roscosmos”, the Institute of Gastronomy of SibFU and the communication agency “Prosto Kosmos” with the support of Sber – GigaPartner of Space Week in Russia 2026. Special cocktails for the festival were developed together with the good mood partner INKERMAN.
The results of the festival were summed up on May 12 at the final dinner-performance “People of Space” at the Cheshuya restaurant. The concept of the evening was dedicated to the people behind space exploration: scientists, engineers, designers, cosmonauts and thousands of specialists whose work remains behind the scenes of great launches.
The main characters of the festival were three chefs, whose sets were recognized as the strongest and most creative:
- Vladimir Mukhin, White Rabbit restaurant, Moscow;
- Roman Chemerenko, restaurant “Cheshuya”, Krasnoyarsk;
- Kurban Musaev, restaurant “Salt”, Kaliningrad.
Together with the chefs this summer, the waiter of the Cheshuya restaurant, Nikita Fortov, who sold the most festival sets, and a guest from the Zemlyane restaurant (Samara) will go to Baikonur. The trip for the winners will be organized by the team of the communication agency “Prosto Kosmos”.
Ekaterina Gorenskaya, general producer of the project and development director of the Institute of Gastronomy at Siberian Federal University, noted that the festival has become an example of how gastronomy can unite people, cities and cultural meanings:
“Gastronomy is one of the most powerful ways to talk about culture, history and human emotions. In this project, we connected space with what is understandable and close to everyone: taste, impressions, atmosphere and shared experience. It is especially valuable for us that the festival united such different cities, restaurants, chefs and teams across the country. We are sincerely grateful to everyone who supported this initiative and became part of the project: participants, partners, guests and teams in the regions. It is thanks to them that the festival turned out to be so large-scale, lively and truly unifying.”
The final dinner combined gastronomy, scenography, lighting and original presentation into a single performance, where each course told a separate story: from the first dreams of space and the flight of Yuri Gagarin to modern life in orbit.
The “First in Space” festival became one of the largest gastronomic projects of the year and showed that gastronomy today can be not only part of restaurant culture, but also a language through which one can talk about science, history and the future.
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