Restaurant review: Ukrainian restaurant delightful addition to Madison’s culinary landscape

The menu also includes fried cheese curds, chicken wings, a fried chicken sandwich and barbecued ribs, but needn’t — the Ukrainian dishes shine.

Mushroom lovers won’t want to miss the mushroom mlyntsi ($10), four gorgeous, rectangular crepes filled with sautéed mushrooms and onions and zigzagged with sour cream.

Another standout was the borscht ($7/$4), the delicious beet-based broth packed with beets, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, onion and pork. A cup was plenty massive and topped with sour cream.

I also enjoyed the pelmeni ($10), 10 handmade dumplings filled with ground beef and pork, but I’ve been spoiled by Madison favorite, Paul’s Pel’meni, with its unbeatable mix of curry butter, sour cream, chili sauce and cilantro. Touch of Ukraine’s pelmeni were nice and meaty, and served with sour cream alone, it made for a fine simplicity.

The varenyky ($8), another type of dumpling, were exceedingly insipid. The half-moon shaped noodles were filled with mashed potato and topped with a tiny amount of fried onion. The little cup of sour cream that came with the pelmeni was generous and meant to be eaten with these, too. The varenyky were the only part of the meal I could’ve done without.

The chicken baked Ukrainian style ($17) is another dish that will delight mushroom lovers. Swiss cheese, mayo and fried onions only heightened it, and it was pounded flat like a schnitzel.

The chicken came with the restaurant’s fantastic side salad with a spring mix base and more ingredients than most side salads, including finely and elegantly grated carrot and cheese, plus an irresistible homemade dressing made with sour cream, buttermilk and dill.

The chicken included a choice of potato or vegetable, and the village-style roasted potatoes were wedge cut and wonderfully seasoned.

My brisk, affable youthful server, who is from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, said the Napoleon cake ($6) is something every Ukrainian knows how to make. The square slice had homemade puff pastry layered with vanilla custard and whipped cream and topped with plump blueberries. It wasn’t flaky like I expected, but still a good way to finish a meal.

The cocktail list is full of Ukrainian twists on familiar cocktails, such as the sleek, fresh-tasting Kyiv mule ($10) with Ukrainian Khor vodka, blue curacao, ginger beer and fresh lime juice.

Saturday is the only day the restaurant serves lunch, and it’s open that day from noon to 10 p.m. The dining room of the former Union Corners Brewery is ample, the wooden furniture comfortable. TVs remain over the bar and between the main dining room and a smaller room.

The dainty menus printed on paper with yellow and blue flowers, and the blue and yellow paper placemats provide the main touches of Ukraine.

Where you might expect Ukrainian music, pop music, hefty on Sinatra, played at a pleasant volume to preserve the tranquil of the room, tranquil on a Saturday midafternoon.

Two of the partners are refugees escaping the war. The third, who was a lawyer in Ukraine, moved here just before the Russian invasion started in February 2022.

When I talked to Katya Temchenko in June she said she and her partners all had different jobs in Zaporizhzhia, “but here we are, starting from the beginning. We’re starting all over again, our lives.”

The other partners are Inesa Zolotarenko, the lawyer, and Zolotarenko’s mother, Tetiana Yermolova, who is the restaurant’s chef.

Zolotarenko is married to Travis Spencer, a senior member of Gary Gorman’s Gorman & Co.’s property management group, which developed Union Corners.

When the war began, Spencer talked to Gorman about helping to bring Inesa’s parents here from Zaporizhzhia, where its massive nuclear plant had come under attack.

Zolotarenko said she met Spencer in Ukraine in 2018, and they married the following year. She began working for Gorman’s company on Feb. 7, 2022, 17 days before the war began.

She said she and Spencer began to look for ways to get her parents out of Ukraine. Gorman not only helped her parents, but also sponsored her friends. “I am immensely grateful to him for this,” she said. “He is a magician.”

Zolotarenko said her husband sponsored her and her parents, while Gorman sponsored Temchenko and others.

In June, Temchenko said it was painful to talk about the situation in Zaporizhzhia and her mother, Olya Temchenko, who was still there.

Temchenko said Tuesday that her wish came true and her mother arrived on Oct. 1 and is helping in the kitchen.

“Thank God she is with me,” Temchenko said.

And Madison’s dining public can be grateful for an excellent Ukrainian restaurant in our midst, working its own magic.