The name translates as 'A Hundred Years Ago, Forward' — and the concept is exactly that. A multi-course tasting menu that begins in the imperial Russian dining rooms of pre-revolutionary Kyiv, moves through the famines and feasts of the Soviet century, lands in the chaotic experimental kitchens of post-independence Ukraine and finishes somewhere just slightly into the future. The room is dressed for the part: a maximalist, theatrical interior of velvet, brass, hand-painted ceiling murals and a parade of period-correct tableware that changes course by course.
The cooking is more rigorous than the theatricality suggests. Borscht is presented in three forms — a clear consommé, a chilled summer beet variant, and a deeply traditional smoked-pork rendition — each given a brief historical contextualisation by the server. Salo (cured pork fat) appears twice in the tasting, once carved tableside as it would have been in a 19th-century banquet hall, and once whipped into a mousse with horseradish and rye crumb in a contemporary plating. The varenyky course is the surprise highlight: hand-folded dumplings filled with everything from sour cherry to wild mushroom to a 1970s-style potato-and-fried-onion combination that the menu pointedly attributes to 'the Brezhnev years'.
The wine list focuses entirely on the wines of Bessarabia, Crimea (where geographically possible), Transcarpathia and the Odesa region — a deliberate statement that Ukrainian terroir deserves a serious tasting alongside the food. The pairing is excellent and not obvious; expect orange wines, Saperavi reds, and a remarkable late-harvest Riesling from a Mukachevo producer that may be the wine surprise of the year.
100 Rokiv is not a quick dinner — the full experience runs four hours — but it is the single most original meal currently available in Kyiv, and arguably anywhere in Eastern Europe.
