The most positive news on the Ukrainian restaurant scene is that Ukrainians return to dining out. While the number of people frequenting restaurants has equaled the pre-crisis figures in mid-2008, the amount of the average check has grown by 20%
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| PHÎÒÎ:SHUTTERSTOCK |
Learn, learn and keep on learning
All possible culinary events in Kyiv organized by western guest performers have been quite successful in Kyiv. The compassionate public willingly greets just about everything offered by the restaurant’s chef.
Food design taste-tasting seminar by Dutch chef
Marije Vogelzang
February. Vozdvyzhenskiy Hotel
A restaurateur with a diploma from the Eindhoven Design Academy travels around the globe giving her expensive seminars on the chic topic known as Food Code. Respectable housewives fancy meals served according to color, sugar spoons that dissolve into cups and revolutionary novelties that “defy stereotypes that alter a person’s consciousness” and acclimate them to trends popularized in glossy women’s magazines.
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| Marije Vogelzang travels around the globe giving her expensive seminars on Food Code PHÎÒÎ: Flickr.com |
Master class by Li Edelkoort. Lectures on the future and the environment
June. Vozdvyzhenskiy Hotel
The third lecture in Kyiv. Well-worth listening. Li Edelkoort has been the director of the Eindhoven Design Academy for 20 years and has become a key figure in European trendsetting with a unique talent for seeing the future and influencing the latest trends. Edelkoort’s Trend Union brings to fruition her ideas on an industrial scale through its representative offices all over the world. Moreover, her ideas were used to develop the concept of the highly popular automobile Nissan Micra.
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| Li Edelkoort is a key figure in European trendsetting PHÎÒÎ: Flickr.com |
Martell Gastronomic Art Festival
July. Concorde, Aprel, Stare Zaporizhzhya, Comme il Faut (InterContinental Kyiv Hotel) restaurants
The idea behind the project is to invite famous French chefs and cooks from gastronomy institutes and culinary schools to Kyiv. The first guest is David Goulaise, head chef of the legendary Ecole Ritz Escoffier School. He presented menus created specially for every restaurant with their own team of chefs over two weeks. The next to arrive are students of the Alain Ducasse School and the Paul Bocuse Culinary Institute.
Rumors
Cafe for the well-to-do to open up on the shield of the Maiden of the Motherland
Earlier this year certain Kyiv media reported that this May a cafe is set to open on the shield of the 102-meter statue protecting the Motherland. The fee for ascending to the caf? will cost several hundred hryvnyas. A special dress code forbidding stiletto heels will be introduced. This is reminiscent of the classic Kyiv tale especially for tourists about the Maiden of the Motherland beating her sword against her shield at midnight.
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| Catering aboard cruise vessels is one of the most lucrative niches i n the European food industry PHÎÒÎ: chervona ruta agency |
Fire at Yakitoriya on Artema
A curious blogger became concerned while strolling along Artema St. for the first time in a few months to see an empty space at the location of the Japanese restaurant Yakitoria with stains of soot on its fa?ade. He shot some photos and put on his website the question: “What happened to Yakitoria?” This was sufficient bait for practically all authoritative Ukrainian media, including Inter, STB and 1+1 TV channels, to use give a false report of a fire.
In truth, the soot stains on the facade remained from a fire that blazed 4 years ago and were masked by advertising banners instead of spending money on renovations. The place is actually empty because it is under reconstruction this summer.
Rockin’ on a riverboat
Serving meals aboard cruise vessels is one of the most lucrative niches in the European food service industry targeted at senior citizens with stable incomes. In Ukraine, the pattern was set in the middle of June at the presentation of the Rosa Victoria pleasure cruise ship.
The ship with a capacity of 400 passengers was built in Germany and designed especially for river cruises offering wedding ceremonies, corporate parties, seminars, buffets, anniversaries, one-day tours, shows and concerts.
Coffee ex machina
Certified baristas now prepare and serve coffee right on the sidewalks of downtown Kyiv. They provide corrugated safety aprons on cups and environmentally friendly wooden sticks to stir sugar
A street coffee machine is in great demand and a very lucrative European invention. A Ukrainian team of baristas that visited London for the World Barista Championship was once again firmly convinced of this. Gwilym Davies, the world’s best barista in 2009, makes coffee at the Flower Market in London and sells up to 1,000 cups a day.
When this issue of KW was going through layout, the first wine bar in Kyiv was opened in the test mode. The wine bar is a joint project of the GoodWine supermarket and restaurateur Serhiy Husovskiy. Visitors can taste wine, several dozens of kinds of whiskey, cheese, bread and hors d´oeuvres from Adelaide Irollo, an Italian chef at the Napule restaurant.
Dining destinations
Vozdvyzhenskiy Hotel
60A Vozdvyzhenska St.
Tel: 531 9900 (31)
Barsuk
3À Kutuzova Lane, corner of Leskova St.
Tel: (050) 344 5131
UnderWander
21 Velyka Vasylkivska St.
Òål: 234 2181, 24/7
Stefano´s Fine Food
Factory
4 Volodymyrska St.
Òål: 279 1121
Rosa Victoria — pleasure cruise ship, www.rosa-victoria.com.ua
Coffee machine on weekdays at the end of Pushkinska St., the intersection of Prorizna and Pushkinska streets. On weekends – at the start of Lesya Ukrainka Blvd. next to Kyiv Perepichka
Wine boutique. GoodWine supermarket, 1st floor, 9 Mechnykova St., Tel.: 390 7960
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