Lana Del Rey’s ‘Summertime Sadness’ is filling the air of the restaurant in Odesa….
“Done my hair up real big, beauty queen style,
High heels off, I’m feelin’ alive”
It’s now the third time I’ve heard Del Ray’s song during just this one lunch. Ukraine’s chain CityBUFFET, has a play list of about five songs – luckily, I like their choices.
Volunteering in Ukraine over the winter of 2024-2025, I was sometimes asked about the availability of food. Fair question, the country was, and is, at war. Though often described as ‘the bread basket of Europe’, a large proportion of the best soils are now either under Russian occupation, too near the front line, or littered with landmines. Though I was mostly well away from the front, the war made itself known in odd ways. One day, a Ukrainian colleague asked me to try some of his lunch – it was what Ukrainians call ‘Vinegret’ – fundamentally a beet salad. The special thing about this particular vinegret, was that much of it had been produced in his grandparents village. What I was eating had come from so close to the front line, that those grandparents were evacuated west, only the following week.
However, speaking only as a tourist, and, I emphacise again – mostly well away from the front line, there was no sense of shortage. In fact, the range of food on display in places like CityBUFFET could seem opulent. CityBUFFET customers simply walk around with a plate – it’s self-serve, and pile on helpings of whatever dish they fancy, spread over several large counters. There are more choices than you can point a stick at. Soups, borsch, of course, but also solyanka, or mushroom cream soup, a range of salads (there was a sort of cold salad, served in casserole dishes, that is apparently ‘salted herring in salad’), savoury pancakes, various meat mains (including stews and cutlets), lasagna, salmon and dried fish, dumplings, cutlets, and vareniki, cheeses, pizza, and even a range of sushi. Gretchka (buck wheat, гречка) became a daily staple for me, and there was always rice, pasta, potatoes, and so-on.
A couple of other meals in CityBUFFET, Odesa. The plate on the left has a herring salad, lasagna, and sushi. The plate on the right has gretchka (buckwheat), beet salad, pasta, and some peppers. Photos: the author (Mike Pole)
On top of that, there are a downright dangerous array of cakes (my favourite was a caramel and nut slice), cheese cakes, sweet pancakes, herbal teas, compots, and even on-tap wine. The plate is simply weighed at check out. The food is generally displayed a little cool (I assume for health reasons, and maybe to cut costs as well) – if you want your meal warmer, the microwaves are self-serve too.
A couple of desserts at CityBUFFET in Odesa, Ukraine. The plate at left has a caramel-nut slice, and a slice of another cake (still to find it’s name). The one on the right has two pancakes and a ‘Сирний пиріг’ – cheesecake. Photos: the author (Mike Pole)
As I carry my tray to a table, CityBUFFET’s playlist is finishes Post Malone’s ‘Chemical’, and The Neighbourhood’s ‘Sweater Weather’ starts up. The place has good wifi, and, if you get the right table, a power point as well. From where I sit, I get a good view, both inside and out to the street – and use it to people-watch. I can’t help noticing that Ukraine has a remarkably slim population. There’s probably several reasons for that (for example, there’s probably more of a walking culture than many western countries, perhaps more of a national ethic of ‘working out, but also a huge pressure on women to keep themselves ‘slim’), but a fundamental shortage of food is not one of them. In the main cities that I saw, there was neither a general shortage of food, or of variety. As a foreigner – and in particular, one from New Zealand, where food has become very expensive, Ukraine was relatively cheap. Cheap enough that I almost always ate out, in places like CityBUFFET. However, for locals, the effects of the war on inflation, have started to bite. For average Ukrainians, it is becoming harder to afford food. For the point of view of a local, check out Tetian Sim’s YouTube video on ‘Ukrainian Poverty Food- Surviving the Economic Crisis‘.
Unlike the ‘western world, where it’s the highly-processed junk food that’s cheap, in Ukraine (as a Ukrainian told me), the cheaper feeds are the most natural/healthy meals. It costs more to go to a branded fast-food restaurant. Hopefully, that never changes.
All-up, I spent about five weeks in Odesa. It’s on the Black Sea coast, but for most of my time in Ukraine, I lived about twelve hours bus trip away, in Lviv. There, I also quickly zeroed in on a couple of favourite lunch and/or meal places. Mistechko was my default go-to place (good wifi, and a few power points). The difference from CityBUFFET was that it was not self-serve. It required speaking Ukrainian to point out what I wanted, and how much. I’d have to come up with something like this, in Ukrainain, of course:
‘Please: I’d like one hundred grams of red salad, one hundred grams of potatoes, five dyrunii, and maybe ‘one hunded grams of this (pointing at whatever it was that I didn’t know the name of).’
Then, when the server finally looked up for the next instruction, I’d say “все!” (That’s all). At each step, a little docket was printed, and at the counter, these were tallied up, and the bill would come, tap with my card – all done.
Fortunately, Mistechko’s staff got to recognise me, and eventually got the hang of what I was trying to say. A couple of blocks away was “Open Restaurant’ (lots of power points – but no wifi). It is self-serve – with the down-side that my eyes were consistently bigger than my stomach, so my bills there tended to be more than Mistechko… On previous visits to Ukraine, I’d discovered ‘Pusata Hata’ in Kyiv. Like ‘Mistechko’, you file past the food, and tell the staff what you’d like on your plate. So as soon as I found one of these in Lviv, I visited it a few times too, though it tended to be slightly off my usual walking route – and with slippery frozen snow everywhere through the icy winter, it could sway my decision whether to go or not.
Lviv also had traditional markets, and supermarkets, and that’s where I would buy the basic ingredients for my muesli. I bought a big plastic tub, and just kept adding various ingredients. Sometimes, I would buy dinner at the supermarket, and take it back to the hostel to hear– but at least for me, Ukraine’s restaurant food was much cheaper than home – and as healthy as I could have wanted it to be.
But right-now, back in Odesa’s CityBUFFET, I finally take my eyes off the street, and make an important decision – Dammit – I will go for cake after-all. That caramel and pecan thing, of course. And maybe a cup of herbal tea too. Making my choice, I return to my table, now to the sound of OneRepublic’s ‘Counting Stars’.
For what is it now – the fourth time?!!
Feel like helping?
Between the very hard winter, and surreal world politics, the situation in Ukraine is now extremely hard. If you’d to contribute directly to some front-line defenders, check out these medics on Twitter: They are in the Ukrainian Army, and very much out in the danger-zone. They are not Ukrainian, but American and Canadian – I follow them as they post in English. They are:
Rima Med: @rima_medUA
April Huggett @AprilHuggett
Rebekah Maciorowski @bekamaciorowski
There is a constant need for donations, for various bits of equipment and medical supplies. If you feel like donating, look them up on Twitter. Of course, if you prefer to donate to actual Ukrainian women in the Ukrainian Army, search through who these people follow.
