You're reading: Eat like a bird in Birdhouse Cafe in Kyiv

Veronika Zisels and Constantine Borisov of Kyiv dreamed about treehouses as children. Now that they are adults, they’ve turned those childhood dreams into a business.

They’ve
opened a café to give visitors an authentic experience of treehouse – or
rather, a birdhouse, since that’s what the café is named.

Opened in
March, The Birdhouse café is actually four wooden houses built on pine trees
3.5 meters above ground. They are built around a bar counter and a kitchen. A
parachute serves as a roof.

The café is
found in a cozy clearing in Alexander Pushkin Park on Peremohy Avenue in Kyiv.

Each house
can hold up to one ton of weight. “Four to six people can fit in one house,”
Zisels says.

Zisels is
the café manager while Borisov, her boyfriend, works as chef. His main rule as
a chef: no alcohol and no meat. Also, there is no menu. “Every day I invent
something new and cook what I want,” says Borisov.

In the
Birdhouse café, a visitor can taste blue cheese-and-onion soup, various salads
and baked vegetables, wrapped in lavash, a thin flatbread. As for desserts,
there are plenty of them – from homemade pies with berries, cheese and
chocolate to funny-named inventions of Borisov.

“For
example, you can have tvorokada – a dish made of homemade cottage cheese and
avocado with herbs. Or a cold chocosoup – melted chocolate with raspberry,”
says Borisov.

The place
offers lemonade, four types of tea and Greek coffee. All dishes are served on
wooden plates with wooden utensils.

For a
lunch, I ordered the rolls – baked eggplants with rucola, lettuce and salted
peanut butter wrapped in fresh lavash (Hr 55) and Greek coffee with milk, sugar
and cardamom (Hr 20).

While I was
waiting for the order, sitting on a soft pillow in one of the wooden houses,
the bartender turned on reggae music. The hosts kept me amused telling stories
of café life.

“People
sometimes come around just to climb in and hang out in the houses,” Zisels
says.

My order
came in 10 minutes. The rolls were tasty and filling but the coffee was watery
and almost tasteless.

Insects are
another shortcoming of the Birdhouse. I like unusual outdoor cafes, but ants
and other insects climbing on the bar counter made me uneasy.

The
Birdhouse café is worth a visit, but hurry. The place is to close at the end of
October, only to return in spring, “like the real birds do,” Borisov says.