>sauce?!
Yevgeny Prigozhin: From Putin's chef to rebel in chief
One of his restaurants, called New Island, was a boat sailing up and down the Neva River. Vladimir Putin liked it so much that - after becoming president - he started taking his foreign guests there. And that is most likely how the two first met.
"Vladimir Putin… saw that I had no problem serving plates to dignitaries in person," Prigozhin said in an interview. "We met when he came with Japanese Prime Minister Mori."
Yoshiro Mori visited St Petersburg in April 2000, at the very beginning of Vladimir Putin's rule.
Mr Putin trusted Prigozhin enough to celebrate his birthday on New Island in 2003.
Years later, Prigozhin's catering company Concord was contracted to supply food to the Kremlin, earning him the nickname "Putin's chef". Firms affiliated with Prigozhin also won lucrative catering contracts from the military and state-run schools.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64976080