The Ukrainian Kitchen: 5 Traditional Dishes to Try

Quick answer: For your first taste of Ukrainian food, start with borscht (with a side of pampushky garlic bread) and varenyky – between them you’ll cover the two dishes Ukrainians themselves would put first.

Ukrainian cuisine gets flattened into “Chicken Kiev” in a lot of Western minds, but the actual kitchen is built around slow-cooked soups, filled dumplings, and a real sweet tooth. For where to eat these dishes on the ground, see our Kyiv local guide.

Borscht

The signature dish: a beetroot soup built on a rich meat broth with carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, giving it a distinctive sweet-and-sour edge. It is usually a lunch dish, served hot with a dollop of sour cream and pampushky – small garlic-rubbed rolls – on the side. Every family has its own version, and arguing about whose is correct is part of the tradition.

Varenyky

Boiled dumplings made from a simple unleavened dough, filled with mashed potato, farmer’s cheese, stewed cabbage, meat, or – for dessert – sweet cherries. What they’re filled with decides when you eat them: savoury versions turn up at lunch or dinner, cherry or berry ones show up as dessert with a spoonful of sour cream.

Holubtsi (Cabbage Rolls)

Cabbage leaves wrapped around a filling of ground meat and rice, then braised slowly in a tomato or sour cream sauce until the cabbage is soft enough to cut with a fork. It is classic home cooking – the kind of dish most Ukrainians associate with a grandmother’s kitchen rather than a restaurant menu, though plenty of restaurants do it well.

Chicken Kyiv

Yes, it is genuinely Ukrainian, whatever the English spelling on old menus says. A breaded chicken breast is wrapped around cold herb butter, then fried until the outside is crisp and the butter inside has gone liquid – cut into it carefully, or it will spray across the plate. Traditionally served with mashed potato.

Syrnyky

Pan-fried farmer’s-cheese pancakes, usually eaten at breakfast or as a sweet snack, topped with sour cream, honey, or jam. They are closer to a thick, dense pancake than a true cheesecake, and they are one of the easiest Ukrainian dishes for a first-timer to love immediately.