Restaurant review: Food of strong and brave at Kozak Ukrainian eatery

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Kozak Eatery and Bakery

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Where: 1 West Cordova St., Vancouver.

When: Lunch, Friday to Sunday, dinner, Wednesday to Sunday.

Where: 5077 Victoria Dr., Vancouver, and 444 Sixth St., New Westminster.

When: Open daily for breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Info: 778-955-9135. kozakeatery.ca

Kozak, in Ukrainian, means warrior. Historically, they were the Ukrainian samurai and medieval knight. Brave. Fierce. And, apparently, serious foodies.

“If you know the history of the Cossacks, you won’t be surprised to find that Ukrainians, who seem quiet and humble at first sight, can … become courageous warriors,” says an article titled ‘Why Are Cossacks Key to Understanding the Ukrainian Nation?’ in ukraineworld.org.

After witnessing the bravery of Ukrainians in recent weeks, it’s obvious why Irina Karpenko named her three restaurant/bakeries Kozak Eatery and Bakery. 

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“It is in our spirit. They’re the symbol of Ukraine, fighters for independence,” she says. “They were also known for good appetites and feasting. They lived in closed communities and had the best cooks.”

Karpenko and husband Sergey Kuznietsov are far from their homeland but they’re fighting as best they can.

“I cried non-stop at first, but then I got to the stage of anger and was ready to fight,” says Karpenko. She’s fundraising to help a friend in Ukraine establishing care for orphaned children. Her parents in Kyiv have visas to come to Canada but ignore her pleas, opting to stay and help.

Karpenko has sent $7,000 so far, some of it donations from supporters, including local Russians, and some from fundraising at the restaurants. Currently, profits from lunch-time borsch sales in the three Kozak Eatery locations and from the Gastown location’s Glory to Ukraine cocktail, layered blue and yellow with Curacao and Advocat, will be donated.

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Karpenko always dreamt of running a restaurant and obtained a masters in restaurant management in Kyiv. The couple moved to Canada in 2013 and she started selling baked goods at farmers’ markets. By 2015, they opened their first Kozak Eatery and Bakery in New West, then another in East Vancouver, and last December another in Gastown.

While the first two locations are bakery-centric with some casual Ukrainian food, the Gastown location — previously Bauhaus — is more ambitious with elevated Ukrainian food, wines, cocktails and plans to keep introducing new dishes.

Alex Orlenko, formerly a catering chef and instructor at Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, is the chef at the Gastown location. Kuznietsov, who earned an MBA in Canada, runs the business and production side of things. All three locations have devoted fans, especially for their chocolate babka and all the more so since the war began.

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“Some people buy three or four loaves of the babka, then are back in three days to buy more,” Orlenko says. Alas, they were sold out at the Gastown location I visited.

Serious about quality and flavour, they look to local, organic produce, free-range and antibiotic-free proteins and mill flours from local grains for the bakery. The Gastown location has a small bakery/takeout area near the entrance.

“We’ll keep adding new dishes, and in summer we’ll expand and change the menu almost completely,” says Orlenko.

The lunch menu is more in keeping with the food at East Van and New West locations, with borsch, Ukrainian soups, latkes, varenyky and cabbage rolls. Dinner includes extras like duck confit with red wine sauce, banosh, a cornmeal dish topped with mushrooms, bacon and Ukrainian cheese, and a lamb shank with barley, cooked with vegetables and deglazed with Jagermeister for “a nice herbal flavour.”

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To start, I tried the borsch ($8 with beans, $9 with pork) and potato and dill varenyky ($9), also called pierogi in Ukraine. I’m more familiar with borsch by Doukhobors — the persecuted pacifists who left Russia for Canada at the turn of the century — which is thick and rich with butter and cream and mashed potatoes. This was lighter and brothy with cabbage, carrots and beets and a choice of kidney beans or pork. It tasted clean and healthy, and slightly sweetened by the beets.

The varenyky can be ordered boiled or fried and is finer than usual with a delicate dough. Our fried varenyky was light with a satisfying crispness as you bite in. Orlenko adds a little hot butter to the dough for elasticity, all the better for a finer finish.

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“It’s what I learned from my grandmother,” he says. “A big team of ladies” rolls, cuts, stuffs and shapes the dumplings, then they’re frozen and ready for the restaurants.

Carpathian goulash surprised me. I expected a meaty stew but it’s more a spicy soup with smoked pork hock broth and pork meat. No wonder it was only $10. “Goulash should be heavy and fatty and supposed to warm you up in cold weather, so it’s all about spices like chiles and spicy paprika,” says Orlenko.

Of course, I ordered chicken Kyiv ($30). It was so tender and moist I thought the chicken breast had been brined. Nope.

“The reason is butter,” chef says. He tucks frozen butter into the rolled breast to slowly melt and create steam. Two or three layers of crumb coating ensures the butter and steam from escaping. I noticed it wasn’t oily from the deep-fry. The reason? He air fries it. And the mashed potatoes that accompany it are kinda like the famous Joël Robuchon dish with a 2:1 potato to butter ratio.

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A hearty artery attack but delicious! Butter’s Orlenko’s secret weapon in a few dishes, it seems.

And yes, there are cabbage rolls (three for $13 or 6 for $20), available with a pork or mushroom filling. They’re neatly and uniformly constructed. The pork rolls were nicely seasoned.

For dessert, we had a square of cottage cheese cake or Lviv syrnyk ($9). Think cheesecake but denser, a little drier. A topping of chocolate glaze and garnish of stewed cherries completed it. Orlenko searched for the cottage cheese from Ukraine with the right percentage of fat and salt. “We found a small Eastern European company that sells it and we buy 60 to 70 kilograms every week,” he says.

The Gastown location has limited hours, but in April the plan is to go seven days a week with earlier hours for the lavka or bakery and deli section.

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SIDE DISHES: A cooking fam jam

Family Services of Greater Vancouver’s Fam Jam Kitchen, a fundraising virtual cooking class will be led by chef Bruno Feldeisen, the celebrity pastry chef and judge on CBC’s Great Canadian Baking Show.

The April 9 event, from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., includes a meal kit with Caesar salad, barbecue chicken pizza and Feldeisen dessert to feed two adults and two kids or three adults. Along with cooking instructions, there will be interactive content and tips for parents to engage kids at meal time. Participants will be sent meal kits with ingredients and recipes in advance of the event. Tickets are available at famjamkitchen.ca.

FSGV provides support with more than 50 programs, services and workshops assisting families facing food insecurity, financial instability, single parenting, homelessness and other pervasive challenges. The programs serve 12,000 people annually.

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Hot off the press

Revelstoke couple Mia Knobler and Jeff Polster and Mia’s sister Zoey Knobler have designed and launched Capra Press, a new, improved version of the iconic French press coffee system.

They loved the full-bodied flavour of coffee from a French press but not the way the grounds stayed in contact with the hot water too long, producing over-brewed and bitter coffee. The Capra Press filter seals off after plunging, separating the grounds from the hot water. It has a removable bottom with a non-stick coating that can be unscrewed to dispose of the coffee grounds. The vacuum-insulated stainless steel carafe keeps four cups of coffee nice and hot. Clean-up is a simple process.

“We love not just coffee but the ritual of making coffee and wanted to create a product that took the whole experience into account,” says Mia.

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Available on Indiegogo as of March 15 for US $124.95.  For more information, visit capramade.com.

mia.stainsby@shaw.ca

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