Ukrainian restaurateur Dmytro Borysov owns some of the best and most popular places in Kyiv but it wasn’t until last year, when he began attracting new customers at his low-cost venues, that he started to receive wide acclaim.
Borysov started a new, low-cost era in his business ventures in 2018, opening his first ‘one euro’ bar Bilyi Nalyv.
That bar, where nothing costs more than a euro, has become a must-visit place for many Kyiv citizens and visitors alike: people were standing in line for 30 minutes to order from the minimalistic menu.
“At first, I was coming up with ideas that would give something new to the market. Now I create concepts based on what you need as guests,” the popular chef and restaurant owner told the Kyiv Post in an interview.
(Video by Irynka Hromotska. The video was produced as a part of the Journalist Exchange Program by Media Development Foundation with the support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Content is independent of the donor.)
Borysov, 38, shifted from advertising to the restaurant business in 2009 after opening his first gastro bar, Barsuk.
In the ten years since, Borysov has become one of the best-known and most widely praised restaurateurs in Ukraine, with 16 restaurants up-and-running in Kyiv, one in Warsaw and five franchise bars throughout the country.
Complicated concepts
Borysov’s restaurants are easy to recognize: they stand out from thousands of others in Kyiv: there’s always a complicated concept behind them, extraordinary menu and presentation, thoughtful touches in decor and even creativity in the names of the dishes.
His Japanese-Peruvian restaurant Ronin offers Nikkei-rolls and the venue is decorated with a huge sculpture of a samurai’s head outside the building.
Crab’s Burger makes signature seafood burgers served in a brightly lit, two-story building with large windows.
“All these concepts are created like a puzzle from details: traveling, communication with chefs and people, products, locations and my own gut feeling,” Borysov said.
At some point, Borysov says he realized that he wanted to not only develop the gastronomic culture in the country by opening various restaurants but that he also wanted to elaborate Ukrainian gastronomy.
Borysov says he believed that everyone, just like he did, was wondering why there were no modern Ukrainian restaurants in the country. So in 2013, he set a new challenge for himself and opened the modern Ukrainian cuisine restaurant Kanapa on Andriivskyi Uzviz, a street in Kyiv’s historical Podil district.
The restaurateur says that he was shocked that most of Kanapa’s guests were foreigners, while Ukrainians didn’t feel enthusiastic about eating local dishes in a restaurant.
After the Euromaidan Revolution, which took place in 2013 to 2014 and forced former President Viktor Yanukovych from power, things slightly changed as everything Ukrainian became trendier — yet most of the customers were still foreign guests.
Despite the unpopularity among locals, Borysov didn’t give up on developing Ukrainian gastronomy and cuisine.
Since then, he also opened Chicken Kyiv, a restaurant praising Kyiv’s gastronomic traditions, Liubchyk, serving Odesa-style dishes, Ukrainian meat restaurant Vatra and Ostannia Barykada (The Last Barricade) located on Maidan Nezalezhnosti Square and paying tribute to the three revolutions, which took place there throughout the history of independent Ukraine.
“I had a different motivation to create each of the concepts,” Borysov said. “It’s my position as a person who has to fill his business with social meaning.”
By creating extraordinary restaurants Borysov set an example for many players in the field.
“We demonstrated to young people that it’s possible and necessary to open new restaurants, do business without betraying principles, make high-quality food and sell it for reasonable prices.”
As for customers, the gastronomic culture has changed as well, Borysov says.
“The motivation to go to a restaurant has shifted from dresses, heels, meeting new people and smoking hookah to eating, chatting with friends, drinking a glass of wine and eating an incredible meal.”
People stand in a line to order food and drinks at the Bilyi Nalyv bar of Ukrainian restaurateur Dmytro Borysov on Oct. 10 on Kyiv’s central street Khreshchatyk. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
New approach
After years of working in the field and communicating with customers, Borysov realized how the market is actually divided.
He says that only about 5 percent of people who eat at fine-dining restaurants will spend Hr 500 per person, or about $18, for one meal, about 20–30 percent go to casual dining places with a Hr 250–300, or $10, check per person and the majority, 70–80 percent of people prefer fast-casual bars and cafes, where a meal per one costs Hr 100–150, or about $5.
Having realized numerous bold ideas at his restaurants, Borysov decided to enter a new fast-casual market and opened his first one-euro bar Bilyi Nalyv in the spring of 2018.
“This was based on the demand. I know what you eat, what you drink and, most importantly, what you are willing to spend,” Borysov said.
For Bilyi Nalyv, the restaurateur created a minimalistic menu with nine positions each costing Hr 29: apple cider, apple liqueur and punch to drink, as well as hot dogs and vegan hot dogs, chicken pie, apple pie and oysters to eat.
Everything in Bilyi Nalyv is cooked with local products. Located on Kyiv’s central street Khreshchatyk, the place has a little room to seat guests inside but most of them prefer high bar tables outside or order to go.
The place has become a real hit and a must-visit place: everyone walking along Khreshchatyk sets eyes on the never-ending lines outside Bilyi Nalyv.
“I didn’t expect it — I planned it,” Borysov said. “A line is part of socialization and the concept.”
However, financially, Borysov says, Bilyi Nalyv exceeded the expectations: it makes as much as some of his biggest restaurants, and its rate of return is 37 percent, while his older restaurants have 20 percent return on average.
Despite the change in approach and audience, Borysov says that he kept his fundamental principle that the basis for a restaurant is food and drinks.
For Bilyi Nalyv, he says, the foundation was the apple liqueur, which determined its name: Bilyi Nalyv is the name of the apple cultivar wide-spread in Ukraine.
And the food was thoroughly thought out: from the temperature of the sausage in a hot dog to the timing of cooking every dish.
Big plans
The combination of tasty food and a trendy concept brought Bilyi Nalyv national popularity: since spring, five more franchise bars have opened in other Ukrainian cities: Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv and Lutsk.
Following his own fast-casual dining trend, Borysov created two more bars of that kind: Mushlya Bar selling seafood, wine and beer — each dish for Hr 39, and Dogz&Burgerz serving burgers, hot dogs, side dishes and various spirits for Hr 29–59.
And he doesn’t plan to stop, he says that he’s always working on some concepts to realize.
Borysov’s next fast-casual restaurant, Philadelphia Rolls and Bowls, will open by the end of the winter on Kyiv’s central Shota Rustaveli Street. This will be another minimalistic place serving four kinds of sushi rolls with salmon, tuna, shrimps and eel, as well as various seafood bowls.
The restaurateur says that this offer was, once again, created in response to market demand.
“No matter how many kinds of rolls we cook you always choose Philadelphia, roll with eel, shrimps or tuna.”
Borysov says that he wants to create a chain of 100 fast-casual bars by the end of the year in Kyiv. It will provide fast delivery bringing hot food 30-40 minutes after the order all over the city, regardless of traffic jams or weather conditions.
The star restaurateur says that although he has entered a new area of work, his goal hasn’t changed — he still aims at developing the gastronomic culture in the country.
“I keep elaborating this culture but now with a new audience — one that used to not eat out at all,” Borysov said.
