Maryna Kondyterska: 'Ukrainian dessert culture is experiencing a renaissance'
A conversation with the pastry chef about reconstructing traditional Ukrainian desserts and the breakthrough that has happened in the field over the past five years.
Maryna Kondyterska (yes, that is really her surname — a family name since the 18th century) receives me in her workshop-café on Andriyivskyy Descent. This is not a 'concept space' but a real production kitchen where 6 a.m. starts baking for three Kyiv restaurants. 'Ukrainian dessert culture ten years ago was practically destroyed,' she says. 'In old Galicia there were at least 40 regional dessert traditions. By 2015 maybe five or six remained.'
Kondyterska began with reconstructing the Lviv 'Krynychanka' cake, which hadn't been baked since 1948. By 2026 the workshop's menu features 23 reconstructed traditional recipes: Podillia medivnytsia, Hutsul oat plyatska, Polissia khrushch. A separate programme is the pastry school at the workshop where 24 young pastry chefs do a year-long apprenticeship. 'I do not try to preserve traditional recipes as museum exhibits. I try to give young Ukrainian pastry chefs a base on which they will build the new.'
