While “caviar” was first mentioned in the West in the 9th century, the roots of consumption of Caspian sea sturgeon eggs lie in Persia. These trailblazers passed their taste for the fine dish on to the court of Russia, where the Czars would serve it during grand Imperial banquets… And then the Bolshevik Revolution happened. The year was 1917. Following in the footsteps of other migrants, princely Russian families and merchants would flee Lenin’s asceticism, bringing caviar to the capitals of Western Europe, and notably Paris. Paris, where the timelessness of this precious tradition owes all of its savoir-faire to Petrossian. In those days, the brothers Melkoum and Mouchegh Petrossian had the extraordinarily avant-garde idea to bring sturgeon eggs to France. And so in 1920, on the Boulevard de Latour-Maubourg, they inaugurated their fine grocery Petrossian. The art of caviar would make its way little by little onto the French capital’s best tables and into the most grandiose receptions, notably in artistic circles. In this country, symbol of gastronomy, caviar became the deliciously exotic dish that everyone was crazy for. But in 1992, the market was shaken by the Iranian Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, neighboring countries of the Caspian sea, where nearly the entire world stock of wild caviar comes from.
And so in 1992, Armen Petrossian took the reigns of the family business. “The masses, who risked thirty years in the goulag for catching a single sturgeon before, scrambled towards business,” the director recalls. The result: in just a few years, the black market exploded and prices collapsed. Armen realized before many others that wild caviar was a dying art. And so he wandered the world in search of farms that he could repurpose to breed caviar. His competitors took him for a fool. “I was sure to achieve the same quality,” he assured himself. “It’s not the best Champagne grapes that make a Dom Pérignon, it’s the work of selection and refinement.” And he ended up on the right side of history. In 1998, an international agreement forbade the fishing of sturgeons. He was thus the first to offer bred caviar. By betting on breeding sturgeon before their competitors, Petrossian soon became the Czar of caviar. Today, the name is proudly displayed in red on the green façade of their iconic Latour-Maubourg boutique. Even the window display is traditional, with customer service to boot. At Petrossian, service is completely adapted to the person. Efficient and worthwhile, the human aspect trumps all; from the sharing of knowledge about the caviar’s specificities, the goal is to pass down the values of a dish that still inspires wonder. Don’t forget that this a profession of the palate, and one of contact as well. And for the holidays, Petrossian is honoring this black culinary gold like no one else. By bringing together the best caviars in the world, they’re promising a tasty walk to remember and to be shared. A luxuriously culinary gift if ever there were one… and one of these blue boxes adorned with a ship that has long been a legend.
Leave a Reply