People from Kiev and all parts of Ukraine divide their meal into the starter, the main and the dessert. Traditionally for Ukrainian people, it is soup or borshch, meat or fish with garnish and something sweet.
Ukrainian traditional cuisine has passed a long way of development and nowadays it deservedly becomes popular among European neighboring countries. The best chefs of Ukraine create really high Ukrainian cuisine, which is admired by representatives of different nationalities and countries. They preserve the traditions of cooking national dishes, sharing the recipes with the world.
The traditional Kiev cuisine is so various that even if you eat so much food every day you will still have a wide choice to try something new because the recipes are famous for its different ways of cooking and a huge variety of ingredients.
For lovers of nourishing and delicious food, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, offers a huge number of cafes and restaurants and if you decide to visit this ancient beautiful city you will be also introduced to one of the most incredible and delicious food in the world. Who doesn’t know Ukrainian borscht? Galushki? Chicken Kiev?
Modern Ukrainian cuisine was fully formed only in 19 century and recipes from old Rus are lost, the reason for this was the numerous attacks of Mongol Tatars, which influenced not only the course of history but also the culture of the cuisine. There is an interesting fact how pork has become so popular and turned to the basis of almost all dishes —Mongol Tatars did not eat pork for religious reasons, and during their attacks, they left only interpret land, dearth, and grief, but Ukrainians could breed pork and invent many ways of cooking it. For example, a very famous and important product is salo, raw pork fat, people fry it, cook it, smoke it, salt it, eat it raw, season it with garlic, various spices and herbs. There are 2 types of salo, fully white and with meat streak, reminds typical bacon which Americans used to eat on breakfast or add to burgers. For gourmets, Ukrainian chefs have invented many ways to cook this appetizer, for example, salo in chocolate, which you can order in the restaurant Tsarske selo (Tsar village). In the restaurant Pervak in the item “strategic reserve of Ukraine,” you can find 5 kinds of salo.

Another incredible dish that can shock the western culture is “holodets”, but if you order it in Petrus-ь restaurant, you will love it! It is a meat jelly, based on pork or beef (sometimes chicken) with spices and served with a traditional Ukrainian sauce horseradish (hrin). You will find “holodets” in the house of each family for the New Year Eve, without “holodets” Ukrainians don’t celebrate New year!

Of course, it is necessary to mention about borscht, the number of jokes about borscht and Ukrainians steps back only to jokes about salo and Ukrainians, and the possibility of getting married for Ukrainian girl is equally proportional to her skills of cooking borscht (joke). This dish has become a visiting card of Ukrainian cuisine and it is cooked in restaurants, cafes, and bistros around the world, but if you come to Kiev it is must-have to taste at least one kind of this marvelous dish! It is cooked based on chicken, pork, beef, or turkey meat and potatoes, tomato paste and cabbage. It tastes not spicy, like Thai “Tom Yam” and not salty like Japanese “Miso Soup”…it is just perfect! By the way, good news for vegetarians! Vegetarian borshch exists and tastes it just as good as traditional!

When you are finished with your borshch you should start your main dish, can’t do without “Chicken Kiev”, people say, this dish was popular in the Soviet times and France and America also claim to be the original author, but the Ukrainian chefs cook these soft, juicy and fragrant cutlets so deliciously that first, you cancel your flight so you could visit all the places where you can taste more varieties of Chicken Kiev, then learn the Ukrainian language, then stay here forever! Despite the extreme caloric recipe, Ukrainians eat it with fried potatoes. And it’s not weird at all to use so much butter and oil in food. As an appetizer for such a hearty main dish order some pickles! Try to go to the Druzi cafe or Borshch cafe! At Taras Restaurant you won’t only enjoy delicious borscht, but also plunge into the cozy atmosphere of the classic Ukrainian farmhouse of the last century.

Even if you can’t handle dessert, you will change your mind when you try legendary ” Kiev cake”, which is not easy to cook yourself but very easy to find in markets and groceries! A very “romantic” legend says that the confectioners from Roshen factory forgot their eggs for the night, in the morning nobody confessed to the mistake and made a cake out of frozen eggs, and then realized that in fact, such a rough mistake led to the creation of a new unique recipe! But the factory workers say that they spent years developing the recipe, probably, because they can’t recognize that after they discover that the eggs were left, they still cooked with a product which had to be changed, but who cares nowadays? Tender taste of cocoa, nuts, soft dough is so harmoniously combined that it won’t leave you disappointed! What’s strange is that when someone comes to Kiev from different Ukrainian city, they bring home a Kiev cake, although it can be bought in any city. But if you come from another country, go to the Kreshchatik street and taste this dessert immediately, there are a lot of cozy places where you can have a cup of coffee and eat Kiev cake in a quiet and calm atmosphere!

Well, you won’t be hungry after such a nourishing Ukrainian traditional lunch, but the question is when to eat “vareniky”?

When you are planning a vacation to another country you are looking for more information on the Internet like currency exchange rates, language, political situation, interesting places and peculiarities of the population. As soon as you arrive in Ukraine you will face a language issue. Of course, these days you don’t need to hire an interpreter, because your smartphone has enough applications that will help you communicate, with maps and navigators you don’t need to ask how to get where you want, and many Ukrainians know English. But sometimes, even if you want to use an online translator, you have to choose the language, and here you can get confused! Ukrainians are bilingual people, they speak both Russian and Ukrainian. The residents of eastern and southern Ukraine are historically very connected with Russia. In the times of the Russian Empire such Ukrainian cities as Donetsk, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro were developing both culturally and financially very fast due to cooperation with Russia, in the times of the Soviet Union already Russified regions were exposed to propaganda, Ukrainian cultural figures were sent to prison simply for writing books in Ukrainian, and those who supported the independence of Ukraine were killed. The central, northern and western parts of Ukraine were less susceptible to propaganda and influence from the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. They advocated independence and integration with Western culture, despite the rather tense relations with Poland in some periods, they sought friendly relations with Poland, in fact, as well as eastern Ukraine sought friendly relations with Russia.
Thus, thanks to those brave people from the past, modern Ukrainians have a choice of communication in the language they want, one in Russian, the other in Ukrainian. Both of these languages use Cyrillic. For a foreigner it is harder to learn Russian, Ukrainian is easier, and, by the way, is one of the most beautiful languages in the world (2nd place). So, if you are going to Ukraine and can’t understand in which language to set up your application-response, in what you want. In any case, you will be understood. By the way, in 2014 the Ukrainian language officially became the only official language. This was done because of the Russian aggression in the east of Ukraine and in order to popularize the Ukrainian language, and radio stations are obliged to increase the percentage of music playing on the radio and it has yielded great results! Ukrainian people are in general very talented and the music of Ukraine is considered the best among the CIS countries now!
However, every Ukrainian has the right to choose which language to speak. But be prepared for a surprise, it is possible that you will ask in Russian, you will be answered in Ukrainian. This is not a matter of principle, it’s just convenient for a person. On TV you can see a strange interview -the journalist asks the artist in Ukrainian, and he answers in Russian. Both people raise each other and have no problems with communication and it does not matter what language is the official in Ukraine, it’s just a formality. People living in Ukraine appreciate their traditions and traditions of their families and if they have spoken Russian since childhood, they will continue to speak Russian, if they speak Ukrainian, they will fight for the right to speak their native language even if their freedom is at stake!
Which is not strange, because the question of language, like many others, is just a matter of politics. For example, when thousands of people and were burned in Western Europe to eradicate traditional paganism, Ukrainians, being baptized in 988, continued their traditions. Baptism was beneficial for political connections and when Ukrainians were driven into the icy water of the Dnipro River, there was an extravagant right to hold their traditional holidays and Ukrainians believed in the forest deities, spirits of the lake, ghosts of the fields for a long time, jumping over a fire, telling children horror fairy tales based on pagan mythology and traditional embroidery full of ethnic elements and they did not care that they were baptized. So, these sociable and cheerful people are able to cooperate, no one would be surprised if it turns out that Ukrainians are still hiding nuclear weapons.