We tracked down a few down-to-earth restaurants that like to serve down home game dishes.
It’s autumn, when the woods smell of gunpowder, the varmints put on their flak jackets, and we start itching for wild meat. In the carnivorous spirit of the season, we contacted some of Kyiv’s best restaurants to find out what game dishes are being served. Here’s what came out.
Near the Lavra
Up at Tsarske Selo, deluxe habitat of salo-huffing parliament deputies and tourists just finished walking through the Pecherska Lavra, you’ll find roast venison; quail served with duck liver; and roast duck with cranberry sauce, in a nice twist on the classic fowl-and-fruit-sauce pairing. Also be sure to try the goose liver with honey pear and cranberry sauce.
That recent addition to the Myrovaya Karta group Razgulyayevo, meanwhile, serves quails on a spit, and you can also request pheasant, either baked in the over or roasted on a spit.
Game Theory
Lypsky Osobnyak, that clubby establishment not far from the Rada, is offering duck breast with cherry sauce and rabbit in white wine. If you’re gallery-hopping on Andriyivsky Uzviz, drop by Za Dvoma Zaytsyamy for a variety of rabbit and hare dishes: hare stew with mushroom and sour cream sauce; rabbit liver; rabbit pie; and rabbit legs with mushrooms.
Over at Swing, up there on top of the hill not far from where the Uzviz starts, you can listen to live jazz music and eat game dishes like roast roe with juniper and cranberry sauce – it’s served with polenta and forest mushrooms. Swing is also offering pheasant in wine sauce, duck breast with pickled pear pieces, filets of pheasant, duck and partridge, and deer filets with chanterelle mushrooms and a ginger-pear sauce.
At hunter-style restaurant Myslyvets, meanwhile, there’s a whole world of gamey protein: pheasant breasts in dough with wild strawberries and greens; roast pheasant with kiwi and orange sauce; roe back filets roasted on a spit; venison shashlik and steaks; venison with mushrooms; hare filets with cherry sauce; rabbit in spicy sauce; and lots more.
Tsarske Selo
42/1 Sichnevoho Povstannya, 573-9775, 290-3066.
Open daily from 11 a.m. till the last customer.
English menu: Yes
English-speaking staff: Yes
Razgulyaevo
70 Stolychne Shose, 259-1700.
Open daily from 11 a.m. till the last customer.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: No.
Lypsky Osobnyak
15 Lypska, 254-0090.
Open daily from 11:30 a.m. till midnight.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
Za Dvoma Zaytsyamy
34 Andriyivsky Uzviz, 229-7972.
Open daily from 11 a.m. till 11 p.m.
English-language menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
Swing
11 Volodymyrska, 229-2865.
Open daily from 12 p.m. till the last customer.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
Myslyvets
47/5 Saksahanskoho, 236-3735.
Open daily from 12 p.m. till the last customer.
English-language menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
