Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Editor’s note: Eating out in Ukraine is a gamble. To bring you honest food reviews, Kyiv Post writers go to restaurants unannounced, pay for their own meals and never accept favors from restaurateurs.

As a theme restaurant, Kyiv’s UStanka (at the workbench) doesn’t fail as a retrospective Soviet-style pub. But the irony of its catchy proletariat menu is lost when looking at the prices.

It’s an upper mid-scale eatery immaculately designed to fit its concept. It’s outfitted with an eclectic combination of rustic wood chairs and tables, an unpretentious stainless steel bar with matching stools resembling a no-fuss Paris brasserie. Tables at U Stanka even had the 200-gram stakany (juice glasses) acting as napkin holders.

Soviet-era wall decorations display the slogans many living in and outside of the Communist bloc grew up hearing, such as “Workers of the World Unite.”

Although workers around the world never banded together, UStanka’s preiskurant (pricelist) offers blue-collar food not only from this region, but also from Italy, France, Germany, and even as far away as Vietnam.

All are places with a communist past or strong socialist followings.


Sleek and shiny, the stainless steel bar resembles a 1930s pharmacy soda shop or what one might run into at an old Paris brasserie. (Courtesty)


There’s German hunter’s sausages and fried sauerkraut with pork fat served with powerful mustard and garnished with sliced tomatoes (Hr 92). The sausages turned out to be bratwurst links but still delivered on taste.

The Georgian cheese bread (Hr 62) was a mixture between a crepe and a classic khachapuri. It’s as if the chef didn’t have time to wait for the dough to rise and decided to serve closed (not traditionally open) bread with cheese. But the dough was consistent and evenly fried on both sides.

Next came the classic Russian herring shuba salad (Hr 38). Although simple in ingredients, shuba salads are difficult to make since each ingredient of potatoes, carrots, beets, salted herrings, chopped dill and shredded egg yolk have to be neatly layered.

Surprisingly, the taste of herring didn’t overwhelm the dish’s other components and it stuck together like a seven-tiered Black Forest cake.

And in true lunch bucket fashion, baked mackerel (Hr 75) was ordered. It was served wrapped in newspaper tied together by a yarn string as if straight from the fishmonger shop of old. Once opened, the scent of red pepper, dill, garlic and lemon emanated from its belly which was carefully filleted.

Plebian pizzas and classic French dishes are also on offer.



A working man’s favorite around the world, U Stanka offers a wide selection of thin crust pizzas. (Courtesty)


Like all restaurants of the Pees Boy Club network, it serves a wide selection of bottled and draft Belgian beers. My dining mate and I opted for Stella Artois (Hr 25) and Leffe Blonde (Hr 49).

U Stanka feels Western, the socialist-Soviet décor isn’t over-the-top kitsch. And the polite service – although our server didn’t speak English – compensated for the plain factory worker clothes they wear. Still it’s better than wearing a Ronald McDonald or Mickey Mouse costume.

The music playing was the only thing out of place in what otherwise was an overall pleasant experience.

The French chanson of 1960s played throughout our meal. The irony is that by that time this type of music had evolved beyond dealing with the lives of Paris’s poor and working class, and had entered French mainstream culture.

But the plasma TVs showing Pees Boy Club advertisements overshadowed this lesser detail, which never let us forget the corporatism behind its themed restaurants.

Fittingly, the pub is located in an area of empty factory buildings, a tire shop and on a street with railroad tracks. But hard hat, steel-toe boot-wearing folk can hardly afford this place. And those who can, might want to visit it just once or twice – no more, really.


Staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at rachkevych@kyivpost.com.

Address: 97 Zhylianska St. (south of and behind Ukraina Shopping Mall); telephone: (044) 207-9292; outdoor seating and non-smoking section. Hours: 11 a.m. until the last customer