The Authentic Ukrainian Kitchen

Celebrate Ukraine’s independent spirit in this cookbook sharing the nation’s unique traditions and culture in 100 recipes crafted by Ukraine’s most prominent chef. 

Now, more than ever, Ukrainian cuisine and culture deserve to be known around the world. In The Authentic Ukrainian Kitchen, Ievgen Klopotenko shares the true food of Ukraine—the way it is really cooked today—with modern recipes for familiar and forgotten dishes.

Klopotenko is Ukraine’s most internationally celebrated chef, appearing on the cover of TIME magazine and on CBS Sunday Morning. A top restaurateur in Kyiv, winner of Ukraine’s MasterChef, and an activist promoting Ukrainian food around the world, he has also worked with First Lady Olena Zelenska to revamp the country’s school lunch program and campaigned for the United Nations to recognize the heritage of borshch.

The recipes he collects in this book are the result of years of research into regional Ukrainian cooking. After training as a chef in France and cooking professionally in the US and elsewhere, he returned to Ukraine with a desire to catalog and promote his own national cuisine—free of influence from Soviet-era propaganda. 

These dishes form a Ukrainian cuisine all its own, shaped by tradition, geography, and agriculture. Known as the “breadbasket of Europe,” Ukraine’s beloved national dishes includeBorshch, the national treasure, a savory beet soup—with many variationsPampushky, easy garlic bread rollsHolubtsi, stuffed cabbage rollsVarenyky, dumplings stuffed with sweet or savory fillingsDeruny, fried potato pancakesLviv-Style Cheesecake, and more 

American cooks will find fresh ideas about how to use common vegetables, new approaches to fermentation and pickling, the delight of dumplings and simple baked goods, hearty braises, and the pleasure of desserts such as Kyiv Candied Fruit. But this cookbook is about more than the food: It stands for the preservation of a culture under threat and the independence of people under attack.

About the Author

Ievgen Klopotenko is a Ukrainian chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, and social activist. He is known for his popular cooking website klopotenko.com, promoting authentic Ukrainian cuisine across the country and the world. He is renowned for changing school catering so that children could become educated about Ukrainian culinary traditions and heritage. In 2015 he won season 5 of MasterChef Ukraine. In 2016 he graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. In 2019, he opened a restaurant named “100 Years Back to the Future,” combining Ukrainian culinary heritage with modern techniques. In 2020 he was named one of 50 Next ranking of people shaping the future of gastronomy. Now he is devoting efforts to humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Born in Kyiv, he studied international relations at the Kyiv University of Economics and Law and has worked in the US, UK, and Europe.