You're reading: Street food festivals gaining in popularity

Restaurants on the streets – also known as outdoor food festivals – are finally catching on in Kyiv, long after they started flourishing in many capitals of the world.

While Kyiv has had street food vendors for a long time, restaurateur Roman Tugashev organized the first Street Food Festival in August 2013. More than a year later, Tugashev has eight successful festivals behind him.

Now others are getting into the act – the more the better, for food fans.

Tugashev’s Street Food Festival is typically a two-day outdoor gathering where food is cooked in front of customers and sold from booths and vans. The menu includes grilled sausages and cheese, fried meat, fish, vegetables, burgers, salads.

Tugashev says he got the idea on a trip to Western Europe.

“In Europe the street food culture implies great taste, good value for money and an interesting idea. So we decided to bring all these attributes to Kyiv,” Tugashev says.

The festival takes place approximately once a month. It’s been changing locations, but lately it has been in the parking lot of Darynok marketplace in the Kyiv left-bank Lisovy neighborhood.

The last festival on Aug. 30-31 had some 60 vendors, selected from among 250 applicants. The standard fee is Hr 3,000, according to Tugashev. But the most interesting food startups can get in for free or a very small fee.

“We try to combine the presence of such ‘big’ guys as Aroma Espresso Bar, Barkas, Chichapuri and the ‘small’ ones, like pop-up restaurants and vans. It is a good chance for the new guys to learn ‘how to do it right,’” Tugashev explains.

He says he hasn’t made any money yet, but hopes to start next year.

Tugashev is, however, not alone on the market.

Dima Borisov, who runs six restaurants in Kyiv, has been holding an outdoor food event of his own, the Crab’s Burger Open Air, since May. This weekend’s gathering serves as a test of his new restaurant’s menu. The Crab’s Burger restaurant will open in Vozdvyzhenka neighborhood, where Borisov now has his weekend crab picnics.

Borisov claims that his Crab’s Burger Open Air differs from a normal street food festival by offering “luxury food” like lobster and king prawn, burgers with crab meat and black marble beef burgers. The average price people pay at Crab’s Burger Open Air is around Hr 90 per serving. While more expensive than Kyivans are accustomed to, the cost is “twice or even thrice cheaper than the price one would pay for the same quality seafood in Europe,” according to Borisov.

There are even nasty words among competitors Borisov and Tugashev.

Tugashev accuses Borisov of copying one of his planned events. He claims that Borisov’s Big Food Festival, planned for Sept. 6-7, is a copy of his City Food Festival, which will take place on Oct. 12-14. Both events plan to bring together famous chefs to cook and give master classes.

Borisov responds by saying that this type of event has been held for at least five years, even in former Soviet republics. “Tugashev just copied the format of the Russian street food festivals. Even the name was not changed,” Borisov says.

Borisov says he aims for high-quality events, akin to the Taste of London festival, “which is a great example of a true professionalism we all should strive to.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]