Is Chicken Kiev really from Kyiv?

You've almost certainly eaten one. Chicken Kyiv is a chicken fillet stuffed with garlic butter, breadcrumbed and then baked or fried, and when you cut into it the butter should run out onto the plate. It's one of the best known dishes in Ukrainian cuisine, sits alongside borshch and varenyky in the popularity stakes, and turns up on Russian and Polish menus too. In Poland the classic name for it is "côtelette de volaille".

Which is the first clue that the story you think you know might not be right.

Does the name really come from Kyiv?

You'd assume the dish is named after the capital of Ukraine. It isn't, or at least not in the way you'd expect. There's no documented proof either way, but plenty of Ukrainian chefs will tell you the original recipe came from France.

There are several competing accounts of how it travelled. In the late 1840s, wealthy Russians sent their chefs to France to learn French technique and bring back the best recipes, and that's one route. Another version credits the recipe to Marie-Antoine Carême, the French chef at the court of Alexander I. He only spent a few months a year in Russia, but that was enough to leave a mark on Russian cooking, and the invention has been pinned on those visits ever since. The problem with that story is simple: there's no mention of "côtelette de volaille" anywhere in Carême's own cookbooks.

"Côtelette de volaille" is a French term and it just means chicken cutlet. Some chefs argue the French originally used veal rather than poultry, because chicken was expensive at the time and treated as a delicacy that only the wealthy could afford, making it the substitute rather than the original. French and Ukrainian chefs mostly disagree and hold that chicken was always the main ingredient.

What we can date is the Ukrainian version you'd recognise today. It was created in the restaurant of the Continental hotel in Kyiv in 1918, and it's reasonable to assume it descended from "côtelette de volaille". It was cooked for the officers of Hetman Skoropadsky's command staff, and it took off from there.

So the name is genuinely local even if the technique probably isn't. Worth knowing: abroad you'll almost always see it written "Chicken Kiev", the old transliteration, which is why the frozen ones in your supermarket at home are spelled that way.

Traditional Chicken Kyiv Recipe

There are hundreds of versions online, but the classic one is the one worth cooking, so surprise your family or friends and make it properly. You'll need:

• Herbs
• Butter 150 gr
• Garlic
• Pepper and salt
• 2 chicken fillet
• 2 eggs
• Flour
• Breadcrumbs
• Olive oil

Put the herbs, garlic, pepper, salt and butter in a mixing bowl and mix them well, then wrap the herb butter in cling film and put it in the fridge to firm up. That's your filling. Add any extra spices or herbs you like as long as they work with the chicken, and it's worth adding cheese if you want it richer, since both the butter and the cheese melt inside and keep the meat juicy.

Slice the chicken fillet and beat it out until it's thin, being careful not to tear holes in it or the butter will leak out in the pan. Season it. Put the herb butter in the middle, fold the two opposite ends in, and roll it up from the bottom. Then flour it, dip it in beaten egg, and coat it in breadcrumbs.

Bake or fry it, but if you're frying make sure there's enough oil in the pan. Twenty to twenty-five minutes and it's done.

Where to Try It in Kyiv

You can buy Chicken Kyiv in the freezer aisle almost anywhere in the world, and it tastes nothing like the version you'll get in a Ukrainian restaurant. Since you're here, eat it properly.

Rebra & Kotlety (now closed)

This one has gone since we wrote it: the owners turned the room on Borysohlibska into a different restaurant, so don't go looking for it. It was a gastro bar whose name literally means "ribs and cutlets", and it cooked the traditional recipe alongside a number of its own, with so many variations that choosing was genuinely difficult. It was the only place we found Chicken Kyiv made with blue cheese, almond or apple, and the set of mini cutlets let you try several at once.

Address: 8/13 Borysohlibska street

Khutorets na Dnipri

Khutorets on the Dnipro sits on the riverbank and it's the place Ukrainians head for first after a long stretch abroad, because it tastes like home. The menu covers the national dishes including Chicken Kyiv, and although it's been open since 1998 it's stayed one of the best Ukrainian restaurants in the city, with a good menu and good service. The decor has changed several times over the last decade and it's now back to a traditional Ukrainian style. There are plenty of tables and you'll have no trouble getting one between Monday and Thursday, but Friday to Sunday is a different story.

Address: 10a Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska street

Chicken Kyiv restaurant (now closed)

This one has gone since we wrote it too: its own Facebook page now lists it as permanently closed, so don't go looking for it on Khreshchatyk. Yes, it was named after the dish, and it was worth going to for the room as much as the food: the post-Soviet design recreated mid-1980s Kyiv and gave everything you ate there a particular flavour. It was one of Dmytro Borysov's places, and he's a well known Ukrainian restaurateur with a lot of restaurants in the city, so the standard was high. Beyond the Chicken Kyiv itself, the banosh and the varenyky were the things to order, and the cutlet came with mashed potato as standard.

Address: 15/4 Khreshchatyk street

Ostannya Barykada or The Last Barricade

The Last Barricade is another Borysov project, and it's a mix of gastronomy and art that pulls in people from different communities, generations and countries. The whole place is built around Ukraine and Ukrainian produce sourced from every part of the country. The design is European with Ukrainian elements worked through it. Come for the Chicken Kyiv, the freshly baked Ukrainian bread and a long list of dishes cooked to traditional recipes, and don't skip the bar, which has an excellent collection of Ukrainian wine and spirits. It works equally well for lunch with colleagues or dinner with friends. Book a table, because it's always full.

Address: 1 Maidan Nezalezhnosti

Barvy restaurant & bar

For less conventional Ukrainian cooking, try Barvy. It's modern Ukrainian food combining traditions and recipes from every region of the country, and it's won several awards including best bar in a restaurant. The space doubles as a venue for regular exhibitions by Ukrainian artists and sculptors, along with music, literary and fashion events, so there's usually something on.

Regulars rate the meat here, and the traditional Chicken Kyiv is a popular order with locals and visiting diners alike. Once a week they put on an exclusive dinner for 12 built around foodpairing, the science of combining dishes that share common ingredients, which is worth looking into if you're here long enough to book.

Address: 3 Mechnykova street

These are a few of the best traditional Ukrainian restaurants for Chicken Kyiv, and new places open in the city all the time, so ask around while you're here.

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