Ukrainian cuisine histrically is of settled people, who likely have a place to return and rarely have âon the moveâ lifestyle, so no prominent âfast foodâ/âstreet foodâ.
Borcht (ukr âĐĐžŃŃâ): a sour soup with a lot of variations, depending on what you add, but meat-based broth (usually beef or pork) is mandatory. Ingredients: beetroot, cabbage, potato, carrot, onion, tomato/tomato paste, hogweed; parsley, salt and pepper up to oneâs taste.
Usually served with a spoonful of a sour cream, but yourâs trully prefer without.
Iconic one: reddiness depends on beetroot and tomato quality.
Thereâs also âGreen borchtâ, sorrel-based instead of beetroot (not that you canât mix bothâŚ). Very sour, always served with hard-boiled egg. On photo - w/o beetroot.

A variant that is saturated orange color is either without beets, a.k.a. âcabbage borchtâ, or used âWhite Beetâ a.k.a. âSugar Beetâ, which donât give itâs colors.
Varenyky (ukr: âĐĐ°Ńоникиâ), internationally knowns as âpierogiâ.
Dough dumplings with filling. Usually large (rarely fit into a standart spoon). Local variant was based on a bit different dough (fermented milk instead of egg), but that moved on. Savoury fillings are mashed potato, sauerkraut or just fried cabbage, mushrooms, cottage cheese, buckwheat, meat either as standalone or part of mix. Those are usually have fried onions either as serving or as part of filling mix. Dessert fillings are cherries, blueberries, other berries and other fruits, sweet cottage cheese. All of 'em traditionally served with sour cream.
Part of everyday and celebration cuisine (Christmas included). Fun fact - thereâs a tradition to make one or few dumplings with extreeme filling (extra spicy, salty, sour or other very contrasting taste) and throw it along usual course into pot. When see weird face at the table - youâll know, âsomeone just won the prizeâ.
HaluĹĄky (ukr: âĐĐ°ĐťŃŃкиâ): in short - âboiled doughâ. In long - soft dough with potato or other ingredients added to batter. Usually served as main course with serving or can be mixed into other soup. Easy and cheap part of stapple food.
âChicken Kievâ: chicken fillet pounded and rolled around cold butter, then coated with eggs and bread crumbs, and either fried or baked. Quite dangerous food for novices - either because of sudden hot butter if bitten right away or said butter on your attire if you ainât nimble enough.

Other international cuisines include:
Aspic - our way to use bones and meat into âmeat jellyâ, served cold and with mustard or grated horseraddish. Usually celebration dish.
Cabbage rolls - local variant had various fillings, but ultimately âcommonâ type ended up meat-rice mix, boiled in tomato paste mix.
Kvass - fermented sparkling drink. Originally made of rye bread fermented with some yeast, but you can go with whatever can be fermented with yeast and drink the same if itâs up your taste (Iâve seen one was doint that with birch slices). Usually around 1% proof. Was a beer-like drink (people been cultivating recipes of it up to 6-8% proof) before slavs was intoduced to beer brewing proper.
Do not cofuse it with âlemonade industry drinkâ with same name. BTW, if you see pinkish purple borcht - it made with beetroot kvass.