Where to eat tasty food in Crimea: a culinary guide to the Crimean regions

The peninsula is famous for its national cuisines and original dishes, unique gastronomic routes, and excellent restaurants. That is why the guides do not stop repeating: when in Crimea − eat as Crimeans.  

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Yalta  

The resort capital of Crimea (as well as the entire South Coast) is rightfully associated with a premium class vacation. Everything here − from luxury hotels to fashionable restaurants − is able to satisfy the most discerning tourists.

• For example, gourmets most often recommend the Doctor Whiskey restaurant, which presents the largest collection of whiskey in Russia. Here, in particular, you can taste haute Russian cuisine. For example, salad with crayfish tails and pheasant (recipe from the cookbook of the personal chef of Prince Mikhail Vorontsov), Black Sea fish soup (used to be served at the house of the marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky), sturgeon dumplings (lunch of people representatives at the coronation of Alexander III in 1883), pike cutlets with couscous and white wine sauce (recipe from the cookbook of the Livadia Palace) and much more.  
• Guides also advise the Fabrikant restaurant, which has its own brewery. The basis of the cuisine is made up of classic Russian, German and Czech recipes. All sausages, pickles and smoked products are produced in the own workshop. The interior is designed in the style of the beginning of the twentieth century − the era when Yalta was the most prestigious resort in the Russian Empire. On weekday evenings, a pianist plays on the white piano. 
• A popular restaurant specializing in the preparation of Black Sea seafood, located on the famous Massandra beach. This is the "Van Gogh" restaurant, which continues to work in the off-season, where you can taste Crimean mussels −delicacies in many forms, rapanas, oysters. 

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  "Everything is tasty here" − this is how gourmets refer to the panoramic Chaika restaurant on the Yalta promenade overlooking the sea. Guests are offered dishes of Mediterranean, Georgian, Pan-Asian and European cuisine, author's cocktail cart. Another famous Chaika is located on the beach of the Yalta-Intourist hotel, which does not stop working in the cold season, organizing various parties and "hot" musical performances.  
• Two more highly sought-after outlets in the very heart of the Yalta promende should be noted: the conceptual Ptizza Bar, where you can enjoy a rich variety of seafood and vivid evening shows, and the Hungry Bird craft street food with delicious pastries and hot mulled wine (by the way, another Hungry Bird outlet is there on the Primorskiy (seaside) beach − it also works in the autumn/winter period).  
• Finally, Balkan Grill − the authentic restaurant of Serbian cuisine is often mentioned in gourmet circles. There on the menu you can find, for example, a young lamb on a spit, cevapcici (a type of kebab), prosciutto (grilled pork ham), chorbu (thick national soup, which contains kvass), fish and seafood.

Alushta 

Many restaurants and cafes for every taste and budget can be found at Alushta − the "younger sister of Yalta". By the way, it is often referred t0 as one of the most democratic resorts on the South Coast. 

• So, according to vacationers, the most original outlet is the Jules Verne museum-restaurant with unusual exhibits from France of the 19th century. Once there was a medicinal boarding house, founded by Dr. Steingoltz on the advice of the French writer Jules Verne. On the menu you can find, in particular, a seafood salad with oranges from India and avocados, which Captain Nemo loved, as well as a cream soup of wild mushrooms and champignons, cooked according to the memories of Paganel from Patagonia, salmon fillet with a fragrant creamy lime sauce from the recipe of the whalers of the Abraham Lincoln ship. At the entrance to the building there is a miniature copy of the Eiffel Tower. 
• The name of another outlet speaks for itself – the Barabulya-bar, where fresh fish straight from the Black Sea is prepared in all its diversities. For example, horse mackerel, red mullet and gobies are fried until crisp, large rare fish (croaker, bison, flatfish, mullet) are baked, mussels and shrimps are stewed, and oysters are served fresh. 
• In the Old Town restaurant you should definitely try seafood coquille, ginger soup with shrimps, pike perch on celery. In addition, there is a children's and burger menu, a large selection of salads.  
• In a restaurant with a hospitable name "Vstrecha" (in Russian − a romantic date), which is located in the very center of the city promenade, on the first coastline, the guides especially praise all types of pizza, as well as fish soup and borshch. 

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Other resort places on the South Coast 

In Livadia: the Tsarskaya Konyushnya restaurant. The guides advise you to try here an unusual dish named Oats with porcini mushrooms. 

In Gurzuf: the Molbert panoramic restaurant with a magnificent view of the Gurzuf Bay from the upper terrace thereof. The main focus of the menu is on dishes from local freshly caught fish.  

In Koreiz: Stary Spring café. It is advised to try pasties here − the best in the South Coast, according to gourmets, as well as dolma, shurpa (thick meat and vegetable stew), yufak-ash (soup with tiny dumplings), solyanka (meat or fish soup with salted cucumbers) and lean borshch.  

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Eupatoria

The city of 25 centuries − Eupatoria − is famous for its restaurants offering dishes of ethnic cuisine − in particular, Crimean Tatar, Jewish, Karaite. These restaurants are on the territory of the local Little Jerusalem popular tourist route.  

• You can feel the delicious flavor of the cuisine of Crimea in the Dzheval Tatar restaurant and try chebureks (meat pasties), pilaf and "Gözlev style" coffee here. According to the guides, preparation of "Gözlev-style" coffee takes a long time, but it comes out with a dense foam. And delicious handmade sweets are served to it.  
• Among other interesting outlets of the Little Jerusalem are the Karaman Karaite cuisine cafe, where you should try chebureks (fried meat pasties), yantyks (baked meat pasties), basturma (dried spicy meat) and buza (sparkling non-alcoholic drink), and the Yoskin cat Jewish restaurant − gourmets advise to order fish, soup, matzo, forshmak there, and tsimes − for dessert. 
• The hallmark of the Modern restaurant is the cuisine of the Romanov era. The menu includes local, European, Italian and Japanese dishes. Specialties of the house are grilled tiger prawns, marble beef, sturgeon in shrimp sauce, duck breast, etc.  

Bakhchisaray and Bakhchisaray district 

Bakhchisaray is, of course, the capital of the classic Crimean Tatar gastronomy. Chebureks and yantyks, shashliks (mutton grilled on a spit), kebabs, dolma and sarma, and much more are served here. 

• In the city that once was a capital of the Crimean Khanate there is a restaurant with a very poetic name "Pushkin". And this must be no coincidence: 200 years ago, poet Alexander Pushkin visited the famous Khan Palace and wrote the well-known poem − The Fountain of Bakhchisaray. Fans of the restaurant prefer to order pasties, claiming that they are the largest and the most juicy there. They are also not against trying yantyks, Black Sea seafood, and poppy seed cake for dessert.  
• Another interesting place is the Degirmen coffee house and museum, where you can not only taste amazing Bakhchisaray style coffee, but also see a unique "reviving" model of medieval Bakhchisaray with an area of 18 sq. m. It covers the life of the former capital of the Crimean Khanate in the period from XV to XVIII centuries. 
• In the Gulfidan café it is worth trying the usual lagman (meat and noodle soup) and lagman with cheese and walnuts.  
• Under the cave town of Mangup-Kale in the Bakhchisaray district there is Khoja-Sala, a family cafe. There are good dishes: khorovats (grilled vegetables) Armenian salad, yantyks and pasties, and also, according to the guides, here is the most delicious yufak-ash in Crimea. 

Theodosia

Like any other seaside city in Crimea, Theodosia also focuses on local seafood.

• So, on the territory of the Alye Parusa hotel there is a cafe named Kulturnoyeh with the author's Black Sea cuisine. Guides advise you to try fish soup and sea cat steak here. There are also grill menus and all kinds of pizzas. Why such a name? This, according to the cafe employees themselves, refers to the culture of sincere, hospitable and fast service, the culture of delicious and healthy cuisine.  
• Antresol, the art cafe with an original design of the interior offers a menu with dishes from Latin American and Italian cuisine. In the evenings chamber concerts of live music are held there. On the premises of the Antresol exhibitions and sales of paintings, creative meetings with interesting people and fashion shows are often held.  

Other resort places on the East Coast 

In Koktebel: Zodiac restaurant is recommended to try rapana with grilled vegetables, Black Sea gobies, hamsa (European anchovy), borshch, and eclairs for dessert. 

In Novy Svet: Wine and Fish restaurant. Fish dishes are good there, gourmets say. You should definitely try the champagne of the Novy Svet winery. 

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Sevastopol and Balaklava 

Sevastopol is called the restaurant capital of Crimea, and Balaklava is called the fish capital. That is why you should definitely enjoy freshly caught seafood here.  

• "I often visit the Barkas restaurant, where I recommend rapana dumplings, okroshka (cold kvass soup) with mackerel, and just any other fish dishes. The Door and the Corner restaurants are also good. Not so long ago, the Poplavok restaurant was opened on the embankment in Artbukhta − not bad either", — the guide Ivan Kovalenko admits.  
• In Balaklava the guides advise a restaurant of the same name and an outlet with the eloquent name the Fisherman's Hut: a fresh fishy caught is always there. The most Crimean and traditional – flounder (flatfish), red mullet (sultanka), horse mackerel, garfish, bluefish, silver carp and others.  
• In Balaklava the Zolotaya Balka restaurant should not be passed by. The author’s concept is the gastronomy from the best Crimean seasonal products, prepared in a creative way and with a spectacular presentation. For example, here you can try risotto with rapana and cuttlefish ink sausc, pike cutlet with tartar sauce, Rizoni pasta with Crimean truffle, and much more.  

Kerch 

Certainly, another city of fish is Kerch. It is no coincidence that for many centuries it has been called Panticapaeum, which means "the way of fish". 

• Here gourmets recommend to go to the Your Veranda restaurant or to the Penguin café-brewery and try the local hamsa (anchovy), herring, mullet, fish soup.  
• And if you want to cook dishes with your own hands, then be sure to visit the famous Kerch fish market, where delicious fish in any form is offered − fresh dried, smoked and with, experts say, real caviar. 

Simferopol 

And finally, one cannot ignore the capital of the peninsula, the "gates of Crimea", which are also ready to "swing open" into the world of unforgettable gustatory impressions for everyone. 

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  Guides offer to arrange a beautiful evening in Simfero restaurant, the menu of which is based on local products, including farm cheeses, vegetables and fruits. Large selection of sushi, fish delicacies, signature meat dishes.
• Aivazovskiy restaurant also pointed out − the first True Сost restaurant in Crimea, as described in social networks. This term means that all food and drinks are sold at cost, but you have to pay a symbolic entrance fee. According to reviews, the cuisine here is delicious and varied, plus a large selection of hot cocktails so desirable when it is cold.  
• And finally, the guides advise to visit the Fisherman's Village restaurant, located within the city on a fairly picturesque area with lakes, rich vegetation, gazebos and swings. Here you can even go fishing and take a steam bath. The hallmark of the restaurant is Slavic cuisine made from organic farm products.