With the ice-covered trees and city rooftops glittering in the cold, clear air, winter is a magical time to visit Lviv, Ukraine’s cultural capital. We marvelled at the city’s elegant architecture as we wandered through its narrow medieval streets, and enjoyed its cosy coffee shops and trendy restaurants. Wherever we went around the centre of the city, we found something of interest – a church, an architectural monument, a quirky shop, a small museum. Traces of the city’s chequered past can be seen all around the Old Town – the Armenian Quarter, the Latin Cathedral, the ruins of the old Jewish Quarter – so there was plenty to keep us occupied, and with over 700 coffee shops to choose from, we were never far from delicious coffee and cake for sustenance.
We stumbled on Kryivka restaurant, which translates as ‘underground bunker’, by mistake. After a pleasant morning’s sightseeing in Lviv, western Ukraine’s historical and cultural gem, my wife and I were actually looking for the entrance to a popular coffee shop on the city’s Market Square when we joined what we assumed was the queue to get in.
‘Slava Ukraini!’ (‘Glory to Ukraine!’) said the young man behind us, tapping me on the shoulder. It turned out he was called Andriy and sensing my confusion from the look on my face, he explained it was the password to get in. Still not really any the wiser (a password?), we waited in front of the non-descript door until it was our turn, then dutifully knocked as we had seen the others before us do.
We were greeted by a grouchy-looking soldier with a machine gun at the ready, demanding the password, which we duly gave. Satisfied that we weren’t undesirables or enemy spies, the guard let us in and immediately offered us a shot of honey vodka. He then directed us downstairs and it became clear that it was not quite the coffee shop we were expecting.
Kryivka is a sub-terranean pub-restaurant set up to represent a Ukrainian partisans’ bunker from the Second World War; the underground maze of corridors and tunnels is a relic of the past – dim lights, spartan tables, with military uniforms and other paraphernalia on the walls. A friendly waiter – in military garb of course – walked us to a table and brought a menu.
Andriy, the young man from the queue earlier, came over and helpfully recommended a few of the traditional no-frills dishes that partisans back in the day used to eat to sustain themselves in the fight – kholodets (jellied chicken), pivmetra kovbasa (half a metre of sausage) and varenyky (dumplings stuffed with potatoes and onion, or minced meat). Thinking we would struggle with half a metre, we decided to pass on the sausage but the kholodets and varenyky were surprisingly tasty and came served on a soldier’s tin plate.
Kryivka is part of a group of trendy ‘concept restaurants’ in Lviv which aim to combine the eccentric with the wholesome. This explains the earlier charade at the entrance. This particular venue is one of the most popular and it was certainly full of customers – mainly a fairly young, hip crowd – when we were there.
We thanked Andriy for his help and made our way out through the courtyard at the rear. We couldn’t resist a mock ride on the military motorcycle with sidecar, and trying out the anti-aircraft gun on the roof. Although we didn’t quite get our coffee and cake, we did have a quick introduction to what life was like as a WWII partisan and enjoyed one of the most unusual, and entertaining, experiences of our trip.
