Midrange
Karavan
On klovskiy spusk 10. serves uzbek-tatar food.
Kureni
4, parkova alley - wonderful national restaurant with very tasty dishes. dinner for five persons, including different appetizers, soups, main dishes and gorilka is around â¬135. it is situated on the bank of the dnepr river and in summer it is very nice to get dinner in the garden, while in winter inside the main building you can enjoy view through large windows and fire from the fire-place. all the major credit-cards are accepted.
Tsimmus
10/5 sahaydachnoho for ukrainian-jewish food. [that's in the #10 building on the main street, but go around the corner to a side street where the street number would have been 5 had it not been attached to a building that already has an address] about $us20/person
CCCP
Over the road from the entrance to the great patriotic war memorial. this soviet-theme restaurant has staff dressed in costume and dozens of traditional dishes listed on the english-language menu. try the uzvar traditional drink made from smoked fruit. expect to spend us$10 each for lunch; they also have a us$20 business lunch menu. it is possible to spend a lot more though. live traditional music and farm implements decorate the walls.
It's also worth checking out pubs and restaurants that offer business lunches during weekday lunch. These are set menus that usually cost around 40 UAH, and include soup, salad, meat dish and a drink.
OâPanas
Shevchenko park, 10 tereshchenkivska, 235-2132. open daily from 10pm till 1pm traditional wooden restaurant, popular to tourists. really good mlyntsi... try the mushroom ones. avg.$us20/person. if you just want to try the mlyntsi, you can walk-up to a stand on the side of the restaurant and get them to go.
Top end
Concord
On the roof of the donbass centre at lva tolstogo square
Schnitzel Haus
Vul saksahanskoho 51.
Touch cafe
Mostly a restaurant but also turns into a nightclub.
Tapas Tapas Bar
Vul tarasivska 10a.
Two Hares
At the top of andriyivski uzviz. 19th-century themed place, good food. have the rabbit pie about 90uah, which is served in a rabbit made of pastry.
National
Italian
Momento on zlatoustivska near the circus, napule on mechnikova near metro station "klovska"
Georgian
Mimino on spaska podil
Vietnamese
There are several restaurants, owned by a person from vietnam the cuisine is a comprise of "hits", rather than complete luncheon sets; considered above-average within local vietnamese community; extremely expensive
Japanese
There's one called hanoi which serves japanese and vietnamese food. it is located near metro arsenalna. the quality is quite high, although the prices are too. further, you will find various sushi-bar-chains in kyiv namely sushi-ya, murakami and yakitoria
Chinese
There is a good one near metro universitet. it's called "jiu long", which means "nine dragons" there is a fast food store upfront, but if you go through the arch, you will see an entire chinese-style building, that's where the real restaurant is; quality is good and prices are lower than some other similarly fancy restaurants. if you don't care about price, go to "lun van" near metro teatralna. other above-average venues but be warned, no one who's experienced anything like the real thing will find satisfactory chinese food in kiev are mandarin on a floating entertainment complex near the river port in podil, and vostok which is across the road from mandarin.
Kosher
King David
Esplanadna 24 tel 044 235 7436 near the central synagogue, glatt kosher, many traditional eastern european dishes. many vegetarian dishes. open 10.00 to 23.00, closed saturdays
Haiffa
Kostiantynivska 57 warning: despite what some guide books bradt etc. may say this restaurant no longer serves kosher food, it has been converted into a strip club, but the signs from the kosher restaurant have not been removed.
In general, it is very cheap to dine in Kiev by European or US standards. So long as you stay away from the places that totally pander to tourists or to the Porsche Cayenne-driving "elite", the food is great and cheap. Try the Borscht, chebureki ÑебÑÑеки, chicken Kiev ÐоÑлеÑа по-киÑвÑÑки and the Mlyntzi and then try absolutely everything else. Baked goods are cheap and great too. Even the ice-cream on the street is great. Try, for example, the one to the right from Khreshchatyk metro exit - blue kiosk with varying length of queues.
When you see vendors selling some liquid from big yellow/blue tanks on the street, you can be sure that it is "Kvas," which is a brewed bread drink. Some people like it and others hate it. It tastes a bit like malt, and the alcohol content is so low 0.05-1.44% that it is considered acceptable for consumption by children. Try "Odyn Malenkyi" one small drink.
You should not drink the tap water for reasons both chemical and microbial. It is advisable to buy bottles in the supermarkets; they usually have English section on the label for "ingredients". You can always order "Bonaqua" sparkling mineral water, but beer is just about as cheap.