Without a doubt, one of the highlights of our Kyiv visit was dining at restaurant Kanapa, one of many amazing restaurants from Dmytro Borysov's gastrofamily. Kanapa is located on Andriyivskiy Descent and offers regular meals as well, not just tasting menus.
We opted for the Tasting Set of the New Ukrainian Cuisine . They will not serve it unless all the ingredients are available, and they do warn you that it is a 3-hour long experience, with no substitutions allowed. Reservations are recommended. We chose the tasting menu with alcohol, which is app. $40 per person, as we really did not want to think about pairing food and drinks. Instead, we wanted to experience this the way the chef and the sommelier intended it to be tasted.And we were so right in letting them chose everything. It was truly one of the best gastronomical experiences we've ever had.
The meal started with with Carps in Sour Cream (carp mousse and oyster cream with fried dill and pike caviar on a crispy fish skin), followed by Ukrainian Oysters in three different sauces- the rose sauce was our favorite. This was accompanied by an excellent sparkling wine- Shabo Brut.
Then came a Black Sea Rachky, with buckwheat chip and sturgeon caviar, accompanied by Tincture, a herb-based brandy which was, like most herb drinks, a little bitter.
Then we tried Root Plant with Pastille (beetroot with black currants, carrots with sea buckthorn, and parsnip with apple and goat cheese meringue)- our least favorite was the carrot one, but we generally loved this. Same as the next three dishes, it was paired with excellent Kolonist Chardonnay.
Next came the Jerusalem Artichokes, stuffed with sun-dried and fresh tomatoes with smoked sour cream. After this came our absolute favorite - Warm Cheese with Chokeberries and Apple. The cheese was fried with a torch which attracted many jealous looks from other patrons of the restaurant.
The last dish with Chardonnay, long gone in our case, was Pea Pate with ferment cabbage on a flex seed toast. Following the Pate, the next drink of choice was Nettle Beer, definitively not a favorite of mine, paired with Black Sea Mussels with sour apples jelly and celery puree.
After all that we had Berry Sorbet to clean our palette - the Sorbet was prepared from scratch using liquid nitrogen which was very effective and looked so mysterious, as if a potion was being made. It was served in an oyster shell.
Then came the real deal- Chicken Kyiv with egg. It was absolutely delicious and it went great with the chosen Pinot Noir of Prince Trubetskoy Winery.
We ended the meal with Conifer Cone, which is basically chocolate cookie that goes well with tea that was served, and Molozyvo with Ryazhenka, which is something like ice cream with poppy seed sponge cake. Very delicious, as was the Kolonist Port Wine 2007.
We started our dinner at 6pm, and didn't realize that 3 hours have so quickly gone by- we finished well after 9pm. We would strongly recommend this tasting menu to all visitors- the food is excellent, and compared to the tasting menus in the States, this one is very affordable.
The evening will remain one of our favorite memories of Kyiv.