Chefs in Ukraine

I’m 29, and I’ve been a cook since 2000. But actually it would be more correct to say that since I was a child. When I was a child, our family somehow got two sacks of flavour. My mother doesn’t bake, so the flavor remained untouched for a long period of time. I was curious and started kind of testing it: kneaded dough and tried to bake something. At first, I didn’t manage well, but every time it was better and better. Then I started exchange recipes with my mother’s friends. At school, I ‘bought’ my marks at exams with cakes. I didn’t want to study, at that time I already knew that it was not for me. That’s why I baked a cake and brought it to a teacher, and got a good mark.

I’m 28. I was working as a barman in a restaurant, when the Japanese cuisine became popular in our country. I decided I wanted to make classy sushi and went to Kiev, where I became an apprentice of a Japanese sushi master Yoshi. My apprenticeship reminded Hollywood thrillers of 1990s, where the main protagonist goes to a guru of martial arts in the heart of Tibet. But My Tibet was in Kiev.

I’m 40 years old. I’m not a chef, I’m a professional amateur. This is how my friends call me for a fun. Anyway, I’m a culinary journalist. My everyday life is closely related to the media. I develop food culture. My motto is to cook by yourself, meaning that people should stop buying ready-to-eat and vapid food, and to cook healthy and tasty food at home instead. It doesn’t cost much. My culinary community iCook is devoted to this. For a professional amateur, experience and service record is the whole life. But if you try to find more or less exact date, when I started my culinary way, then this is when I was 6. At that time I started getting in my grandmother’s way in the kitchen. As a memory from that period I even have two notebooks with culinary notes and recipes, which I wrote down with my childish uneven writing.

White bunches of acacia blossom, hot dirty sand, dazzling summer sun and a crowd of grubby boys running and jumping into green waves of the endless Black Sea. There's me, Lyosha Shvets, among them. I'm 5, and I'm happy. Today, I've jumped from the pier and cooked lunch for the first time. It was a real lunch, just like mother cooked. Like an expert, I pierced puffy sides of extremely hot potato with a tiny, partially burnt match, and I was happy. Potato steamed and smelled extremely tempting. I couldn't even imagine then, how many magnificent aromas, tastes and textures I would discover in the future. I was 5 and that was the first time I cooked on my own.

Do you know, who is the most honest gastronomic critic in the world? A newborn baby who has been just fed with milk. This baby is happy with life and has got colossal emotional and physical power-up and is ready to tell the world about its pleasant mood. I think, I took in the desire to cook tasty and delicious dishes in my early childhood. Perhaps, it explains why I can't recall when ex

I was born and grew up in the most magnificent city in the world, which I could have never left. And I’m happy about this. I’m Viktor Prodanov, Odessa resident by birth, professional navigator and chef at the restaurant with a European name. When I look back, I can see adventures, different events, loud parties and friendly holidays. I grew up in a big family. I’ve got two brothers and two sisters - and it’s almost a football team. But our mother managed to bring us up obedient and honest. Support and mutual trust are very important. When I decided not to be a ship captain, not to waste my life to earn huge income spending half of the year at sea, my family was really surprised. But they didn’t condemn or reprimand me. They supported my decision. It was hard. It was reckless. But they are proud of me now. And I’m proud of my family in return. I was 7 when I cooked my first dish. I wanted to make a surprise and to try myself. I’ve got curiosity and passion in my blood. I cooked Kharcho soup then and can still remember that flavorous hot red mixture glowing in plates. I was triumphant.

I’m 31. I’ve been a cook for 13 years, and I enjoy it a lot. Destiny has chosen this path for me and I’m happy to follow it. I’ve been working in Pomodoro since it was founded. Previously, I worked for about 6 or 7 years in other places of this chain. I like the attitude to the staff, the owners of the restaurant are attentive and understanding. They are always involved. And I like to have a free hand for creative work. This is inspiring. Initially it was a mere accident that I became a student at the Food Industry Technical College, and later at the Academy of Food. At that period I understood that it was my destiny. I got involved in cooking and I liked that. And I also liked making people happy.

It doesn't matter, how old you are, if you're not satisfied with your life. I'm glad I live grateful and smiling. I live with what I do and fill it with love. I'm sure, my guests can feel it, and they eagerly rely on my culinary experiments again. My name is Nikolay Truba. I'm a real Odessan, cheerful and young. Don't ask me about my age. I'm proud of my Soviet childhood, perestroika-era formation and amazing opportunities of the present time.

Actually, my attraction to culinary and creation of dishes wasn’t always that obvious. I accumulated experience, learnt new methods and got special education. As a child, I was a rather good painter. Nowadays, I create palettes of dishes and decorate them prior to serving. Food design is my passion for sure. It lies somewhere between thematic serving, table layout and performance. And such commonplace as eating tasty food becomes a fascinating experience. I adore bringing fantasies and bold solutions to life. But I love genuine fascination of the restaurant’s guest even more. These are they who motivate me the most.