2019: Updated with new cafes and restaurants.
I started to write this article firstly during the Chernobyl tour that I made with my friends in May 2017. Then I had the chance to visit Kiev again with my friends in September 2018 and I discovered more restaurants –probably more than my first visit–. Therefore, -even it was delayed for a while- I’ve updated this article. I hope you will have a chance to try these tastes and will remember this article!
Ukraine is the cheapest country for eating & drinking among the countries I have visited (Serbia comes next) until now. Although the wealth level is not very high, Ukraine offers various and fair eating & drinking options. In this article, I will share the places and tastes that I enjoyed while I stayed in Kiev.
Zhizn Zamechatelnykh Lyudey (The Place or Life of Wonderful People)
This place was my favorite in my last visit to Kiev. We really enjoyed spending time here with my friends. Both ambiance and food were great. It is a popular place among the youth of Kiev. But I can’t say that the famous “Kiev cheapness” is not available at this place. We should better call this place as a kind of “fancy” place. The staff is young and almost all know English. They have English menu also.
Now, let’s talk about food. The name of the riot of colors above that I selected as the cover photo is Spicy Grilled Chicken. The other accompanying flavors to the chicken are coriander, red and green pepper, rice cooked with coconut milk, mango marmalade, purple onion pickle and a slice of lime. I want a meal I eat would also be pleasing to my eye. Serving of the meal is also important as the meal. (I guess it’s called as composition in the jargon.) In this respect, this plate offered me a great visual feast together with a taste bud blowing also. The spices they used to marinate the chicken are delicious and the outside of the chicken was crispy. If you take a main course, I would definitely recommend this plate. I paid $11 for this meal.
The meal above is Soft Veal Cheek prepared with suckling veal cheek. My friend ordered this meal and I tasted it also. The veal cheek is slow-cooked and became meltingly tender similar to the taste of lamb in tandoori, that we know from Konya cuisine. The accompanying flavors are mashed potatoes, baked apple slices, spinach and Demi-glace sauce over it. Its price is $13. As I tasted both, I recommend to choose the chicken.
It looks like the order of the food may be wrong, but I ordered the Most Creamy Mushroom Soup above as a starter. (Yeah, their naming way of the food also nice ) The plate includes cream, nuts, onion confit, Russian meat dumpling (pelmeni). The mushroom sauce that you see in the photo coming in a porcelain bowl separately. When you pour it to the plate, it becomes as in the photo and you will eat with appetite. I enjoyed this soup, because I really like every kind of mushroom. However, I should say this is not a hot soup. (Not that cold to name it as a cold soup.) So, consider this before ordering. The price of this soup is $8.
I saved the mind-blowing taste for the last. Even all foods are delicious, the favorite food of this place, the place of great people, is a taste of its appetizer menu. To create the picture above, you should order White Ciabatta Bread and Our Favorite Hummus from the menu. The hot sauce and butter is included with the bread. This bread cooked in the restaurant daily. In fact, our order was served just after, it come out of the oven. The hummus is very delicious and its harmony with hot bread and butter is mind-blowing, the ones grown up in a stove-heated house know. The price of these tastes are $8.
I attached the address of this restaurant: The Place of Wonderful People, because you should definitely make it a part of your Kiev tour.
Milk Bar
This café is within just a 5-10 minute walk from Taras Shevchenko National University and Arena City. This place takes attention both with its tastes and also been preferred by the young population, student or labored. It’s mostly known with its desserts, but breakfast, appetizer, soup and main course options also quite wide.
They serve soups with a piece of herb bread. I like every meal made with chicken broth, likewise, I enjoyed this soup also. Cold soup may be nice on occasions, however, I didn’t taste Gazpacho, because I don’t like tomato soups. My friend Umur tasted and enjoyed. You may prefer in a hot summer day. Soup prices are at around $5.
I’m not an avocado fan. However, it’s a protein rich fruit. Both its foam and itself used in this breakfast plate. I can’t say it’s an ultimate taste; it’s a taste what you can expect from scrambled egg, bread and some fruit-vegetable combination. However, after all, it’s an option that can preferred as a protein and carbohydrate source. Price of this breakfast plate is $8.
I have already mentioned that this place is famous with its desserts. The Brownie is very good. There are white chocolate, bitter and milk chocolate particles in it. I ordered vanilla ice-cream over it. You can feel the real vanilla seeds inside the ice-cream, it’s a very nice scent and flavor. Price of the Brownie is about $5.
Here comes another extraordinary taste: This cheesecake, top is covered with caramel and crispy almond, outer side covered with black currant flavored dough was very delicious and light. I must confess that while I’m not a cheesecake fan, but I’ve tasted twice from my friend’s plate.
Except those the above, there are daily and weekly plates also that not included in the menu, but presented in the shop window.
At the best, you should go and get your dessert from the shop window. This will be eye-pleasing for you. Here’s the website of the Milkbar, you should definitely make it a part of your Kiev tour!
Ресторан Antwerpen – Restaurant Anvers
First of all, I have to say that the decoration of this restaurant is very good, named after the Belgium’s beautiful city Antwerp. After entering a passageway from the main street, you’ll arrive at a place like a patio. There is a nice classic car, mini goblins and other decorations reflect Medieval European atmosphere.
If you ask me why I went to a Belgian restaurant in Kiev, I will respond you that you’re right, but I still don’t regret going to this place. This is a very pleasant place, and the great visual feast offered at the entrance is not reflected in the prices. Additionally, offers a wide variety of choices from European beers, especially Belgian beers. They also have a waiter knows English and he’s very caring. (Anyway, there are not too many staff in this place.) This waiter’s food and beer knowledge is, pretty much and he’s taking care of you, but not unbuttoned.
Ask him to recommend you beer and meal, he will gladly help. Also, you can ask a beer recommendation that fits your meal selection. I ordered a mushroom soup as starter. The soup portion is quite big and fresh cooked grain bread is very substantial. If you’re considering of ordering two plates for two and if you’ll take main course and dessert after it, you should order the soup just one plate, it would be definitely enough.
Different from the other mushroom soups I’ve tried, this soup consist of mushroom particles. (I don’t know, maybe that’s what it should be) The mushroom soups I’ve tried so far were consist of mushroom flavored water and cream, and a few pieces of mushroom. However, this soup containing fine-chopped mushrooms. I don’t know how to say, it likes tiny particles, but not blended. It was very delicious.
On my next visit, I ordered a chicken noodle soup. If you like a combination of chicken broth, carrot and parsley and any such, you will also love this noodle soup. (It is more flavored than the chicken broth soup of the Milk Bar.) It is very light than the mushroom soup. I’ll not make the same warning that I make for the mushroom, you may order two individual plates.
As main course, I ordered a T-bone steak 300 g. As I remember, I paid about $6-7 at the utmost for this taste. I told that the meat and meals are cheap here. For example, aside a restaurant price, grocery price of T-bone at Turkey is close to $25. I admit that, therefore, I focused to food during my tour. The T-bone that I preferred was medium well cooked, served with roasted pepper. You have to order potatoes separately, if you want.
The other plate that we ordered for our table is a burger plate consists of 3 mini burgers. The first one is a chicken burger with a chicken patty in the normal sesame burger buns, the second one is thin salmon slices in the black burger buns colored by bamboo charcoal powder and finally, the third burger is normal burger patty in the red colored burger buns. Even the plate consists of three burgers visually looks nice, I have to say that my friend Enishan didn’t like the black burger buns including bamboo. Perhaps, you may prefer a bigger portion normal burger. By the way, while writing this article, I have noticed that the burger buns are in the colors of Belgium flag.
When it was the dessert time, I wanted to order Waffle, because we’re in a Belgium restaurant. I have already experienced the serving style of Waffle is quite different in the countries other than Turkey. That’s how it was here. Thus, there is no toppings like kiwi, strawberry, banana, chocolate drops, nutella and chestnut. Crispy sugared waffle dough (has an amazing smell) and vanilla ice-cream for topping, and served with melted milky chocolate in a ceramic pot. Fresh mint leaves and edible golden sugar wires for the decoration of the plate. The chocolate was perfect. Eventually, there is fact, as the Belgian chocolate. The ice-cream and waffle dough also very successful. But I can’t say the same things for the golden wires. There’s no need to spoil the enjoyment of the waffle itself. After all, you may prefer a Belgian Waffle to complete the dinner, you’ll not regret it.
Tripadvisor page: https://goo.gl/BFXDWv
Царське село – Tsarske Selo
I like trying local food while travelling. So, after a short search on where to try local food in Kiev, even I didn’t prefer this method, we determined the most popular place and we started out to this place.
If you visit The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, this place is very close to there. The local food belongs to Ukraine cuisine is served here. The prices are a little higher than the other restaurants we visited, but still fair.
I started with soup. The borscht soup is one of the indispensable of the Ukraine and Russian cuisine. The borscht soup is served both hot and cold. I preferred to try hot one, because I didn’t take kindly to cold soup yet. The soup is prepared with bone broth and red colored due to beet and has a soil smell also. There is also zucchini and bone-in meat in it. It’s served with fresh green onion, white bread, sour cream and a dipping garlic sauce for white bread. It’s delicious, likes the meat broth soup that I eat in Munich, but the vegetable taste is a little more intense. The soup is served in a bowl cooked rye bread. Price of this plate is $4.
I tried ribs cooked in barbecue sauce as a main course. I like barbecue sauce because of its sweet and smoked. However, after the meal, I noticed that I like this sauce more often in grilled meat. To my surprise, I noticed that I don’t like this sauce in boiled and roasted meats. It’s served with mushroom pickle and boiled vegetables.
I ordered roasted potatoes and fried tallow plate. If you like tallow, I strongly recommend you to try this.
These two plates cost $10. We didn’t take a dessert here, because we were replete.
Foursquare page: https://goo.gl/T2YjYn
Grill Do Brasil
This place has a different kind of concept, buffet restaurant that examples are present in some countries, and also in some pizza restaurants. You pay an admission at the entrance and eat unlimited food that offered in the related time frame.
Here, the important point that you should know is the admission is different at the each time frame. Accordingly, consequently, meat type served is also changing. When your time frame is ended, you have to leave the place or pay the new admission fee.
For example, while the served food are chicken wings, meatballs and such in the time frame with an admission of $12, in the other time frames, steak, chops and similar high-end meats are served with admission of $24-36-48.
We visited this restaurant on the day we return. Because of our return flight is at afternoon, we visited this place at an earlier hour and we caught one of the cheapest time frames. I liked the meat served such as chicken wings, chicken chops, meat balls among the meat served. (Considering the low prices we paid, I can say that the cost/benefit ratio of the place is very good). On the other hand, you can take side dish such as vegetables, corn, pasta from the next buffet to the meats. This salad bar is also unlimited.
After getting quite hungry and catching the ideal hour –neither the most expensive, nor the cheapest- you can take advantage of this place. Here is the address.
Other Tastes
Besides above, there are many other places offering Mediterranean cuisine, Italian cuisine, and steak cuisine in Kiev. A nice example of the Mediterranean cuisine is Файна Фамілія / Fine Family restaurant we visited on the last night of our trip. (Foursquare page: https://goo.gl/hzC2t8 ) According to my credit card statement, we paid about $14 for dinner for two including drinks.
For instance, in the Goodman Steak House one of the luxury meat restaurants of the city, the price of the Goodman Strip Burger is $13. In the less fancy places you can eat quality meats also for cheaper prices (Foursquare page: https://goo.gl/zkHHhB )
However, I didn’t write the details of the meals we eat in these places, because they’re ordinary as you can find everywhere. The prices in these restaurants are also fair.
Finally, I have to say that Kiev satisfied me on eating & drinking. Because it offers both a variety of cuisines and prices also very fair compared to the portion sizes. Lucky me if I could help you for some meals! 🙂
Bonus : портер паб / Porter Pub
First of all, its name is not Noptep No:6, its Porter Pub. We noticed this after progressing on Cyrillic alphabet a little. This place offers many cocktails with fair prices. You can get next to the stage for live music or you can visit the sections where you can see the boilers that they produced beer in them. This pub is a huge place that converted from a depot or factory. You can see dancing teens with rock music if you go on Friday night. So, don’t go on Friday. Again the prices are very fair.
If you stay in the region that new hotels located (close to the train station), I recommend, because it’s within walking distance.
As you know, I’m not in Kiev always. So, if you notice that any place from this list is closed, please inform me using comment section.