They look more like little sculptures than desserts.
Glazed mousse spheres, gold-sprinkled eclairs, tarts with a whole caramelized pear on top and colorful macarons are just some of the sweet delicacies enticing from the counters of Honey, a Kyiv chain of artisan confectioneries and bakeries.
And their appearance is no delusion. Having just as impressive taste, the Honey desserts attract around 2,500 customers to three cafes every weekend. Inspired by a French culinary tradition, the chain also serves a variety of breakfasts and main courses, coffee and a selection of wine.
Honey’s success of seven years lies in no other but exceptional attention to detail and true dedication to the art of dessert making. Some of their sweet recipes take more than six months to develop until they reach the perfect flavor blend Honey aims for.
“We are perfectionists,” Honey’s co-founder Anna Zavertailo told the Kyiv Post. “It is important for us that everything is 101%, above the level we expect.”
Groundbreakers
By the time the first Honey cafe emerged in Podil district in 2014, the capital’s dessert market was dominated by clichés like Tiramisu and Panna Cotta, as well as Medovik and Napoleon, simple layered cakes popular in post-Soviet countries. But Honey’s founders, a married couple of Anna Zavertailo, 36, and Stanislav Zavertailo, 41, were set to change that with elaborate mousse desserts, pastry and bakery.
“It was difficult for us to explain to a guest what it was and why there was no Tiramisu,” Anna Zavertailo remembers.
The two run a chain of mini coffee shops Coffee Nostra located in Kyiv’s business centers until they decided to make Stanislav Zavertailo’s childhood dream come true. As a kid, he was a big sweet tooth who admired the dessert-making craft and spent hours baking cakes and pastry along with his mother.
His passion and natural skills automatically put Stanislav Zavertailo in charge of the menu development. His partner, meanwhile, supervised the stuff and worked on marketing.
The co-founders of Kyiv’s Honey confectionery and bakery chain, married couple of Anna and Stanislav Zavertailo, pose for a photograph. Honey is one of the capital’s most popular and beloved dessert spots. (Courtesy)
At first, the two tried to get help from a restaurant consultant but soon realized that all the given advice were overused patterns already saturating the market. And so they embarked on their own journey of culinary discoveries.
Instead of layered and sponge cakes, the couple came up with a number of tender mousse desserts melting in one’s mouth that would later become a trend popping up on the menus of numerous Kyiv cafes.
They say they were the first to introduce the French meringue instead of the then-widespread Italian one. The French meringue has twice less sugar, which lets cooks add more sweet stuffing inside a dessert, without messing up the general flavor.
“We broke a lot of stereotypes,” Anna Zavertailo says.
The unconventional approach made Honey an instant hit, and in two years, they opened another cafe in the historic center. The biggest Honey to date, located in 300-square-meter premises on picturesque Yaroslaviv Val Street, it is now the chain’s most popular spot that can seat up to 100 guests.
A year later, another Honey appeared in a trendy location, Kyiv Central Department Store, or TSUM.
As the demand for their desserts kept growing, the founders increased production and moved it to what they call “the heart of Honey,” a separate confectionery of 700 square meters. That’s where all the desserts are now crafted to be later distributed into the cafes.
“We are constantly modernizing our production, despite the fact that we have very high quality that is second to none in Ukraine,” Anna Zavertailo says.
Craft delights
Building its work on the principles of French cuisine, Honey handcrafts as much of its own products as possible from bread to even meats.
“We do everything we can do with our hands,” Anna Zavertailo says.
Their menu offers tempting breakfasts, including all kinds of eggs, avocado toasts, croissants, bagels, granola and syrnyky — Ukrainian cottage cheese pancakes.
But the main focus of the cafe is a selection of desserts. The choice is so versatile, it can at the same time offer 17 flavors of macarons, 10 kinds of eclairs, 15 auteur desserts, marmalade, chocolate candies and cookies — all laid out on the cafe’s counters under the glass, illuminated like museum exhibits.
Before making it to the “exhibition,” all desserts have a long way to go from an idea to a satisfying, both gastronomically and aesthetically, result. Each one of them is made in seven versions on average before the co-founders pick the final one.
What the couple calls their most anticipated dessert is Alfonso, which took Stansilav Zavertailo nine months to perfect. Resembling a mango with its shape and colors, the tender dessert combines mango compote with tiny layers of cream and sponge, all covered with coconut-flavored mousse.
Some of the elaborate desserts sold at Kyiv’s three-café chain Honey take more than six months of development to reach an ideal blend of mixtures and textures. Alfonso (L) and Christmas Tree (R) were among the recipes that took the longest to perfect. (Facebook/ Honey)
Another of their recent sweet hits, Christmas Tree, took a while to reach the ideal combination of flavors and textures.
“One of those desserts that languished for more than a month in anticipation of something special,” Stanislav Zavertailo says.
In its final version, Christmas Tree is a mixture of white chocolate and matcha base with tangerine pure, pieces of yuzu and pineapple inside. It looks like a tiny green hill with an uneven and slightly crunchy surface, adorned with a tiny cone on top.
“A cone made of jam turned out to be that ‘cherry on the cake,” Stanislav Zavertailo says.
Aside from all their star recipes, Honey prepares special offers for holidays like Easter bread or panettone. The chain also makes whole cakes upon order that impress both with design and unusual recipes. One of them, Pistachio cake, has literally every ingredient made of pistachio including icing, mousse, cream and sponge.
Though the chain enjoys a big demand on their hit desserts, Honey doesn’t rest on its laurels. The Zavertailos change 15% of their menu every season. “New positions on the menu are our development,” Anna Zavertailo says.
After seven years of success, with the constant search for the betterment and unaltered perfectionism, Honey’s co-founders keep proving what they once set as a goal — “to show this world that high-quality confectionery in Ukraine is possible.”
