Restaurants in Crimea
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Pushkin Le Café
Tapping into the legendary Russian poet’s connections with the Khans’ Palace, this outstanding restaurant combines a charming 19th-century drawing-room atmosphere with a skilfully executed menu that runs the gamut from Russian to Crimean Tatar, via French and Italian. The grilled salmon comes highly recommended.
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Visiting the Khan
Not all Crimean Tatars are teetotal, despite being Muslim, and the sociable owner of this pleasant casual restaurant can often be seen sharing shots of vodka with her guests as she works the room. Nab a bench seat on the terrace, order plov (lamb, carrot and rice stew) or chebureky (meat or cheese turnovers/pastries) and gaze over the netting at the valley beyond. Look for a white building and a sign в гостях у хана picturing a camel caravan.
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Harem
Harem is an unusual thing – an upscale Crimean Tatar restaurant. Mostly, they’re quite casual. But on the terrace or in the lovely tiled Oriental room, you can sample a wide range of the Tatar cuisine, from top-notch deniz (seafood soup), biber-sarma (sweet peppers stuffed with minced beef, rice and spices) and lampa bykadina (bulls’ testicles grilled in brandy). French, Italian, Chilean, Argentinean and Georgian wines provide libation, and there are hookah pipes.
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Khutorok Lya Mer
Overlooking the sea at Massandra Beach, this restaurant is designed to look like the interior of a ship, but the theme isn’t overdone and there’s only a small fish section on the menu. The cuisine is Ukrainian meets Russian meets Crimean Tatar meets European, with dishes like varenyky, veal stroganoff, and pork fillet shashlyk with Provençale herbs. The seaside back terrace is a lovely spot.
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Kafe Marakand
Local Tatars are frequent patrons here, where the assortment of Central Asian dishes includes plov (meat and rice), manty (lamb ravioli), lagman (beef noodle soup), shashlyk (meat skewers) and lepeshshky (flat, round bread) – nothing substantial for vegetarians. There’s also an Italianate covered stone terrace.
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Rybatsky Stan
Steeply escalating prices and popularity with wealthy Russians along with cheesy dinnertime music have slightly spoiled this one-time gem. However, come at lunch and you’ll concede its cooking is still rather good, with fresh produce and carefully sourced ingredients. There aren’t too many places in regional Ukraine where you encounter Thai basil, after all.
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Mercury
Behind the Krym Kino Teatr, this popular Tatar restaurant is just as famous for owner Sakine’s ability to read your future in the grounds of your Turkish coffee as it is for its excellent cuisine. The basturma (pork steak) comes highly recommended and the 1kg ‘Kazan kebab’ (100uah) will feed four or five people.
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Café Putra Jaya
Enjoy a change with a medical-school canteen that caters to the numerous Indian, Malaysian and Arab students. On vul Pavlenko, pass the eye hospital, Aeroflot and the Appeal Court, turning right around that building and continuing diagonally to the next clearing. Continue through the guardhouse for Café Putra Jaya, on the left.
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Kafe Motivi
This opulently decorated and moodily lit Persian restaurant is one of Simferopol’s hip hangouts. The food, which consists mainly of stews and stir-fries, is delicious but usually takes ages to arrive. Menu prices are for 100g while most servings are 200g to 250g, so you need to do some mental arithmetic when ordering.
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Karavan Sarai Salachik
Hookah pipes replace alcohol at this round-the-clock restaurant, in which individual gazebos with low Turkish-style seating (or topchans ) are dotted across a landscaped lawn. There are all the usual Crimean Tatar dishes, including sheker keyeks (a little bit like traditional Turkish baklava) for dessert.
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Pelmennaya
This is the best workers’ caff in town because it makes your order fresh, rather than doing the usual of placing dishes in a glass display cabinet for hours. Varenyky,blyny, borshch and good, crisp salads all join the namesake dish of pelmeni (ravioli-like dumplings).
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Traktir
Gimmicky but sometimes fun, this place has staff decked out in jaunty white and blue sailors suits. Dishes whose names allude to the Crimean War – pies called ‘Malakhov Hill’ for example – join Russian standards like kurnyk (chicken, kasha and pancake pie).
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Soup House
While its food is better earlier in the day, this nouveau stolova (cafeteria) gets bonus points for its stylish, cheerful décor and wide range of Ukrainian staples, from green borshch and berry-filled varenyky to cranberry juice.
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Celentano
The national pizza chain is a much-appreciated addition to reasonably priced meals in Sevastopol. This particular branch has even been known to offer broccoli as a topping: something you’ll eagerly fall upon if you’ve spent much time in Ukraine.
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Piroga
Brightly coloured murals give this casual eatery the atmosphere of a world food café. The eponymous pirogi are in fact like large flat calzones, and you choose individual toppings for them as for pizza. Salads and desserts also served.
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Yapi
Although it’s sort of a chain – with two other outlets in Kyiv and Lviv – this sushi restaurant feels perfect for the Sevastopol waterfront. Flavours are wonderfully crisp and fresh, the service less so.
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Flamingo
Older well-heeled travellers might be most satisfied with this relatively sophisticated Euro-Ukrainian restaurant, with a smattering of English on its menu (and very unsophisticated photos to help in the choosing!).
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Chai Dom
This charming tearoom, located in another nice stretch of restaurants, is good for beverages, hookah pipes and snacks like fruit salads and blinis. At times, however, the sulky-teenager service is laughable.
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Café Uyoot
Acquaint yourself with one of Kerch’s main eating avenues in this popular casual café. Fish dishes seem to be popular choices and its calamari with fried onions is delicious.
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Captain Grey Bar
It is worth indulging in a meal or coffee on this Albe Parusa terrace restaurant. The panoramic views of the beaches, sea and town include the neighbouring Dacha Stamboli.
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Prinzesa
The chicken tikka masala, Pattaya noodles, egg sambal, lassis and hummus (usually) in Arabic Prinzesa is cafeteria food, but still better than you’d get in Kyiv.
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Zolotoe Runo
The waterfront is lined with restaurants, including the huge, hard-to-miss Greek galley on stilts with wobbly stairs called Zolotoe Runo.
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Kafe Viktoriya
A spot to try in winter, Viktoriya’s homemade cooking turns out all the usual Russo-Ukrainian fare, including exceedingly good and popular soups.
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Kiyazha Vtikha
This obligatory Ukrainian theme restaurant loves its cheesy band and cheek-to-cheek dancing, but the food is tasty.
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