Yerusalym

How One Restaurant Feeds War Refugees in Lviv, Ukraine | Eater

"Operating in Lviv for 14 years, this café specializes in Jewish cuisine drawn from Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions across Europe and the Middle East, showcasing family recipes such as gefilte fish stewed with beetroot, essig fleisch (sweet-and-sour beef stew with cherries and honey), seasonal vorschmacks, and a much-missed Napoleon cake usually made by the co-founder’s mother. Co-founded and run by Lola Landa with her husband Serhii Koniuhov and sister Lena Mahera, with daughter Sonia handling pastries, the compact 800-square-foot kitchen has shifted from running a neighborhood restaurant and the eco-minded Lviv Smart Food delivery service to acting primarily as a charity kitchen and warehouse feeding refugees and vulnerable residents during the war. They prepare large batches of simple, comforting meals—cabbage soup, borsch, noodle soup, baked chicken with buckwheat kasha, and pyrizhki—and supply organizations like Hesed-Arieh and Caritas Ukraine, growing from 20 free meals a day in late February to a record 200 on some days, while juggling day-to-day menu planning amid rising prices and sporadic shortages (for example, brown rice). Practicalities of the crisis have affected operations—volunteers pick up meals or the owners deliver to schools-turned-refugee centers, reusable glass-container returns for their zero-waste delivery program have fallen to about a third, and the team has even slept in the café to host displaced people—yet they still try to preserve traditions by organizing a small Passover seder and delivering seder plates to elderly residents before curfew. Despite evacuating their children and other family to Germany, the owners emphasize community solidarity, steady routines (walking the dog Harvey at 7 a.m., team meetings at 8), and a long-term commitment to relief work while adapting to an uncertain, protracted conflict." - Yaroslav Druziuk