THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS IS TOUGH

Recently more than one restaurant that you would be more likely to see on Main Street, USA than in Ukraine, has opened in Kharkiv.

BASKIN ROBBINS

With two Kharkiv locations. Baskin Robbins is one of these. And the bubble-gum colored furniture, friendly uniformed staff, 35 flavors of ice cream, not to mention banana splits, milk shakes, floats, and cakes, is just what you remember from back home.

Only in this market, it is a bit expensive for the average Ukrainian pocketbook. At 5.50 hryvnias for one scoop, and 51.50 for a cake, Baskin Robbins ice cream is out of the average family’s reach.

But, as manager Svitlana Andreychuk explained, the quality of the ice cream is superior to the local variety. Produced in Russia at the Moscow factory as a US- Russian joint venture, the ice cream is imported to Ukrainian cafes in Kharkiv and Odesa. And passing through customs is what drives the price up, she said.

“For the Ukrainian public, I think we need to add baked goods,” she said. “And we’re running advertisements telling the public that Baskin Robbins has been making ice cream since 1945, the ingredients are all natural. We have birthday parties with costumes, a clown, and contests. In Moscow there are around 20 Baskin Robbins cafes, but we have not managed to tap into the market here quite yet.”

She’s hoping the patio, especially at the Gorky Park location, will help attract clients.

FLORENCIA

Another joint venture restaurant opened recently in Kharkiv offers Italian cuisine. Carol Bocchio, who is from Pescara in central Italy, is Florencia’s maitre d’hЩtel and was enthusiastic about opening her unique restaurant in Kharkiv. She said that she was most excited initiating a cultural exchange between Ukraine and Italy.

“Italians have a food culture, and for us to eat together is symbolic. This is a meeting between people, sitting together, eating together, and working together,” she said. “This is what I want to give my customers.”

Florencia is a joint venture between Italian and Ukrainian companies, who invited Bocchio to come to Kharkiv to ensure an authentic Italian atmosphere is created in a Ukrainian setting.

One of her duties is to teach the service staff how to serve food in the Italian style. “It’s very important that everyone receives their plate at the same time,” she said, “and the dish should not be taken away before they are finished.” This is one of the frustrating aspects of restaurant culture in Ukraine, she said, and one of the more difficult things to teach her Ukrainian staff. But “they are learning,” she added.

The food is prepared by an Italian chef. He has taught his Ukrainian cooking staff how to make hand-made macaroni and to create the aromatic dishes on the menu. Like tortellini “Vecchia Firenze”, Tagliaelle Tricolore con il Ragu (tomato, spinach and regular pasta with meat), lasagna, ravioli “Doice Firenze” (sweet ravioli), and tirimasu (with smetana in place of Italian cream), for instance, all to be had at what Bocchio calls “moderate prices”.

“Students won’t come here,” she said. “Our customers will be class, but the prices won’t be extremely high.”

A meal of eight courses, including appetizers, pasta, meat, and desserts could run you around 150 hryvnias per person, not including alcohol. Our drinks which included white wine, mineral water and after-dinner liqueurs cost 25 hryvnias a person.

The ingredients for the recipes are a kind of cultural smorgasbord. “The meat we buy here”, Bocchio said, “because meat in Ukraine is very, very good. But the things we cannot find here we import from Italy.” For example? The oil, vinegar, wine, sauce, parmesan cheese, and prosciuto come directly from Italy.

“ Of course I’ve been in other ‘Italian’ restaurants here,” she said, “but they use Ukrainian macaroni. It’s very important for things like that that the taste is Italian.”

As for what competition she might have from these other restaurants, she just smiled. “I think it’s going to be okay,” she said.

The surroundings are certainly classy. The restaurant is located in the Kharkiv Hippodrome, which was at one time the venue for horse races, as well as regional and national motor racing. The building itself although overlooking the racetrack now in shabby disuse, has been completely renovated and looks gorgeous. The dining room can accommodate 150 guests at circular tables, and has a vaulted ceiling, one half of which is made of opaque glass, flooding the hall with natural light in the daytime, and painted with panoramic views of horse racing on the opposite side. The ceiling is supported by white pillars with gold relief, and staircases reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet and decorated with climbing ivy flank the room on each end. The long glass-countered bar, the string quartet on the balcony, and two unique fountains all add character to the room.

But when asked how business was, one waiter said, “So-so. The problem is people in Kharkiv don’t have a lot of money... But come in the evening — it’s really gorgeous.”

THE FRENCH BAKERY

But perhaps it takes some time to break into the Kharkiv market, as has been the case with The French Bakery. It opened two years ago on Pushkin Street, but although it attracted attention with its unique interior, French music and fresh- baked aromas, it was some time before it became crowded.

But now, it is expanding its production, and placing ovens in other locations to make croissants and loaves to be sold in kiosks and in the metro.

The French Bakery is a Ukrainian firm, with investment from the French company, Eurofours, whose representative also spent a month in Kharkiv training employees. The bread and petits pains are good, although not quite French. There is perhaps not quite enough butter in the croissants for the French palate, yet they sell well in Kharkiv.

Manager Anatoly Blukor said the only problem is that “we can’t use just any flour. We have to buy the most expensive flour on the Ukrainian market, and that has an influence on the prices. And we import all other grains from Austria.”

Bran bread sells at the competitive price of 95 kopiykas, but the more tasty “kampagran” is UAH 2.20, and the popular mushroom tarts are 2.50. But people are buying them, and lunch time is busy.

The store is also planning to open an adjoining sit-down cafe, and if they can offer clients soup, sandwiches and cappuccinos they could realize some of the success seen by the French cafes in Moscow. The novelty alone may be considered worth paying a little extra for.

But this is Kharkiv, not Moscow, and for now such restaurants are fighting an uphill battle.

WALTSAM DONATS

What do you get if you combine Dunkin’ Donuts, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s and build it on the main street of Kharkiv, right next to Gorky Park?

Well, it must be Waltsam Donuts, the first donut shop in Kharkiv. And it’s creating a sensation, especially among families with young children.

These are not just any donuts. They look and taste just like the ones you remember from home, and with your hot chocolate they go down really well. Orange twists, sugary fruit-filled ones, chocolate cream-filled ones, even brownies are on the menu. Or if you’re more hungry, there’s the pizza, which comes out of a conveyor oven just like the ones at Little Caesar’s.

“It’s really hard to make money in the restaurant business,” said manager Sam Martirossian. “But you can’t go wrong with fast food.”

Waltsam’s is a joint venture between the investors in Michigan and their local partners. Mr. Martirossian himself is originally from Albania, but moved to the US in 1972, and since then has lived in New York, Michigan, and Connecticut. “We have plans for 20 kinds of pizza,” he said. “But we’re looking for anchovies.” He imports the flour for the doughnuts. “The quality of flour here is terrible. I have a special machine for it. We find stones, pieces of metal, all sorts of things in the flour.” He wants to manufacture flour here so he doesn’t have to import it, because otherwise the prices have to remain quite high. “Having to import basic ingredients is what makes prices like this,” he said.

Currently Waltsam’s has six kinds of pizzas, ranging in price from 6 to 15 hryvnias. Donuts cost 2 hryvnias, and there is soft ice cream, too.

No alcohol is for sale at Waltsam’s because according to Mr. Martirossian, too many people drink too much in this country.

“We wanted to make a place for children. I don’t have kids myself, but I love them. There’s a beautiful park here, and we’ve made a playground for the kids. There’s going to be a floor just for birthday parties with a clown, and on the second floor there are video games, which cost only 3 hryvnias for an hour of play.”

Waltsam’s is ahead of McDonald’s when it comes to entertainment for children, and with the park nearby parents are happy to sit and talk on the patio while their kids play on the slide or in the computer room. The clown is a little stiff, but if he could liven up his act with some juggling or magic tricks, and if Waltsam’s added a few more games, perhaps with prizes, Kharkiv might witness the birth of a kid’s fun house similar to Chuck E. Cheese’s back home.

№22 September 05 2000 «The Day»
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