Yevhen Klopotenko

Yevhen Victorovich Klopotenko (; born 23 November 1986) is a Ukrainian celebrity chef and restaurateur. His work focuses on traditional Ukrainian cuisine. Since 2019, he has run the restaurant in Kyiv, which features pre-Soviet Ukrainian dishes.

Klopotenko won MasterChef Ukraine in 2015 and then studied at Le Cordon Bleu. In 2017, he led the Cult Food project to improve school meals in Ukraine. He has documented Ukrainian regional styles of borscht; his work led to the dish being listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage for Ukraine in 2022. He has supported the Ukrainian effort in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his restaurants have given free meals to refugees.

Klopotenko has written two cookbooks in English. He starred in a 2023 documentary about borscht, titled Borsch: The Secret Ingredient.

Early life Klopotenko was born in Kyiv in 1986. In 1991, he spent time living with his grandmother in England, near Manchester, where he was introduced to more diverse food. His parents taught him to cook borscht and scrambled eggs, which he credits for his early interest in recipe development. In 2020, he created a YouTube series called The Secret Ingredient featuring people across the country making borscht. On 1 July 2022, UNESCO fast-tracked a decision to list it as intangible cultural heritage in need of safeguarding. A representative of Russia's foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, responded that Ukraine was xenophobically refusing to share the dish.

Restaurants

In March 2019, Klopotenko opened , a restaurant in Kyiv's city center focusing on reviving pre-Soviet Ukrainian cuisine. When Klopotenko noticed the volume of refugees passing through Lviv, he acquired a former cafe building and opened the restaurant five days later. The restaurant lists its free options as "menu two" and avoids referring to its customers as refugees. The free menu is funded by paying customers, donations, and Klopotenko's own money.

In April 2022, Klopotenko began catering for diplomats and other VIPs on the national rail service, Ukrzaliznytsia, in an effort to gain their political support. The first he served was Boris Johnson, whose identity was kept secret from him; others included Olaf Scholz and Bono. In November, he hosted a series of dinners in the United Kingdom to raise money for victims of the war.

Books In October 2021, Klopotenko released an English-language cookbook with seventy recipes, including varynyky, holubtsi, deruny, and several borscht recipes he found across the country. He called the book a "love letter to the diverse culture and foodways of Ukraine." It received reviews by Booklist and Publishers Weekly and a starred review from Library Journal.

Awards In 2021, Klopotenko was included in the 50 Next ranking by The World's 50 Best Restaurants, the first Ukrainian to be listed.

Public image Klopotenko is Ukraine's most famous celebrity chef.