Osteria Pantagruel

Top choice in Kyiv


Kyiv's best Italian restaurant has been around seemingly forever, churning out legendary homemade pasta and risotto in a whitewashed cellar smack next to Zoloti Vorota. The warm months see tables and chairs spill onto the square out the front – the perfect place for a beer on a summer evening, with a separate menu of cheaper Ukrainian fare and burgers.

The bronze cat across the road is a monument to Pantyusha, who once lived in the restaurant.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Kyiv attractions

1. Zoloti Vorota

0.03 MILES

Part of Kyiv's fortifications during the rule of Yaroslav the Wise, the famous Zoloti Vorota was erected in 1037. Modelled on Constantinople's Golden Gate…

3. St Volodymyr's Cathedral

0.31 MILES

Although not one of Kyiv's most important churches, St Volodymyr's Cathedral arguably has the prettiest interior. Built in the late 19th century to mark…

4. St Sophia's Cathedral

0.32 MILES

The interior is the most astounding aspect of Kyiv's oldest standing church. Many of the mosaics and frescoes are original, dating back to 1017–31, when…

5. Taras Shevchenko Memorial House Museum

0.37 MILES

A beautifully restored, 19th-century wooden house where the man who dominates the Ukrainian literary pantheon once lived. You can see drawings he made on…

6. Khreshchatyk

0.42 MILES

Kyiv's main drag is named after a river, which these days runs underneath, enclosed in an underground pipe. Getting gussied up and strolling Khreshchatyk…

7. Kyiv National Museum of Russian Art

0.46 MILES

With 2000 paintings, only a fraction of which are on display at any one time, this museum, set in an impressive tsar-era mansion, has the largest…

8. Fomin Botanical Gardens

0.47 MILES

Lying behind the Universytet metro station building, the landscaped gardens are best visited in spring when just about everything there is blooming.