Now Yaremchuk champions fruit-forward Ethiopian roasts, and airy cardamom and choux buns from nearby bakery Soulmates, alongside his fellow countrymen. In the past year, he’s been joined behind the counter by two additional One Love alums, who together have collected hundreds of pounds of beans donated from nearby cafes and shipped them to the soldiers on the frontlines back home.
A more nostalgic Ukrainian coffee experience is also available in Warsaw, if you know where to look. Husband and wife Oleg and Inna Yarovyj relocated here from Kyiv in 2015, then opened Dobro & Dobro, which holds the record for Poland’s smallest coffee shop. They’ve since expanded to Wroclaw and Krakow, but when I paid a visit to their original location, a few blocks south of Savior Square, where the line out the door for their signature brew was hard to miss. “Out of superstition, Ukrainians drink coffee with cinnamon on Thursdays,” Inna told me, “because it’s supposed to ensure prosperity and wealth.” The spice has been the secret to their success.
Lviv Croissants has seen a less expected boost. The popular Ukrainian bakery chain made international headlines in the early weeks of the war when Angelina Jolie showed up at one of its native outlets in her role as a United Nations Refugee Agency ambassador. She hosted a lunch with local children, and raised the profile of the bakery in the process. Interest in the croissant sandwiches, stuffed with everything from cheeseburgers to boozy cherry confit and mascarpone cream, has skyrocketed. Lviv Croissants now has a prime location on the north end of Nowy Świat in Warsaw, in the heart of the Royal Route, a historic path that runs eight miles from Warsaw Castle to the 17th-century royal residence Wilanów.
For a culinary adventure, it’s best to explore the heart of that route on foot. Lviv Croissants stands next door to Pijana Wiśnia, or “drunk cherry.” It’s another Lviv import; the bar is famed for its heady cherry-infused cognac liqueur, a spirited staple found in every Ukrainian household. A few doors further up, and you’ll spot the neon glow over the terrace of Czarnomorka, where owner Olga Kopylova, who began her restaurant empire as a waitress in Crimea before the Russian annexation, made her name dishing out hulking plates of Black Sea comfort foods like oysters, mussels, and fresh-fried mackerel by the pound. When I first arrived the dining room was empty, while some babushkas were browsing the market counter. A manager, also from Ukraine, pointed me toward a darkened, covered driveway outside, which leads to the chandelier-lit garden that stays crowded with patrons until midnight.
