Ukrainian Refugees Are Building New Lives—And a New Scene—in Neighboring Warsaw

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I arrived later than expected in downtown Warsaw on a recent Saturday night. Earlier that morning I had departed from Lviv, where I was reporting on the hospitality scene struggling to survive in Ukraine’s embattled cultural capital. But after a 15-hour journey across the border (10 of which were spent passing through customs), I reached Nobu Warsaw’s subterranean jazz club, Jassmine, which has become an essential tour stop for headliners like Yazmin Lacey and Terrence Blanchard, the Grammy-winning composer who was blowing his horn that evening. Seemingly a world away from Lviv, I found a cosmopolitan scene with an international crowd—and the creative touch of Ukrainians both in the audience, and behind the curtain.

It was a topic of my conversation the next afternoon, when I shared a pot of sencha tea with Nobu Hotel’s marketing manager. Originally from Ukraine (she has asked not to be identified by name, as her family is still in the country), she worked on the ground as a media liaison through the early days of the Russian invasion. Ultimately, she boarded a train for the west last April, leaving behind her life in Kyiv to resettle in Warsaw.

“I worked for an NGO in Ukraine, and I appreciate how the team here is so outside the box,” she says, pointing out how she crosses paths with Australians, Austrians, Belarusians, Italians, Mexicans, and Ukrainians in the halls, kitchens, and offices, on a daily basis.

The “Refugees Welcome” Art Show, the latest exhibition at Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art, raises money for two nonprofits that assist newcomers with work placement and language classes.

She recalled the first time she wandered this residential pocket of the Śródmieście neighborhood last spring, and was struck by the slimline Art Deco building’s polished facade, lush greenery breaking up tiers of balconies and floor-to-ceiling windows. She sent in her resumé, got the job, and the hotel has been a cornerstone of her life in the capital ever since.

The reciprocal embrace of Polish and Ukrainian hospitality touches all corners of Warsaw right now, an act of generosity not without precedent. The city has flourished since the fall of the Soviet Union, in part due to its welcoming of immigrants from complicated political situations in neighboring nations like Belarus. Having left the complications of home behind, young idealists have found a safe haven on the European Union’s eastern border. Now, it’s not surprising to hear “Budmo!” the Ukrainian toast meaning “let us be,” during a night out on the town.

You likely hear its sound in Woda Ognista—translated to “fire water”—a cocktail bar hidden a few steps off the luxury shopping drag of Mokotowska Street in the city center, which recently welcomed two bartenders from Talkies, one of the most celebrated speakeasies in Kyiv. Ford’s Gin and Jack Daniel’s partnered to cover the costs of their journey to the city, enabling the team to showcase a menu of drinks that feel like artful still lifes—think a wedge of watermelon drowned in a bread-infused gin.

In Warsaw, the third incarnation of Karma—which had past lives in Minsk, and the Kyiv—is part-performance space, part-bar, pure edge. Above, Belarusian singer and actress Ketevan Asratashvili takes the stage.

The drinks are edgier across town at Karma, a community art space, concert stage, pub, and Belarusian social club, anchored in a pier of the Poniatowski Bridge. At first glance, the scene appears as organized chaos, a folk-punk Berghain, where bohemian refugees explore pop-ups from vegan chefs and tattoo artists, or pick up the mic and give voice to impromptu songs of love and rebellion after being denied their voice in their homelands. But the Belarusian founder Gleb Kovalev, who opened the space one year ago, assured me it’s the most orderly venue he’s ever created. “It’s so legal it makes me sick,” Kovalev tells me, while handing me a bottle of Wheat Sabbath from local Dis-Hop Underground Brewery.

While most visitors congregate at the street-front bar, grand staircases lead to a nest of rooms hidden within the foot of the bridge; a chic members’ club with cocktail service and cinematic nooks furnished by local artists like Tasha Katsuba. This is the third iteration of the club; Kovalev first opened Karma in Minsk before the 2020 elections oppressed the more liberal communities there. He fled to Kyiv later that year and opened the second Karma just weeks before the Russian invasion. The third space is here to stay, he assures me, and because Karma was so well known to the cool kid scenes in Belarus and Ukraine, it became an instant gathering place in Warsaw.

By the time the party died down at Karma, the city was waking up to defend freedoms that the latest wave of immigrants could no longer take for granted. I set out in search of coffee through peacefully protesting crowds, as Polish citizens marched in support of the liberal opposition parties that would go on to win the parliamentary elections, ushering in a new government a few weeks later.

A Ukrainian flag with a dove holding an olive branch was taped to the door of Ministry of Coffee. It’s a daytime hangout anchoring a graffitied Soviet-era apartment complex on the edge of Savior Square, an 18th century plaza which is today lined with chic terrace restaurants, like carb-and-confiture haven Charlotte.

Nowy Świat in Warsaw, at the heart of the historic Royal Route from Warsaw Castle to the royal residence Wilanow, is also a hub of culinary excellence with destination-worthy restaurants.

Head barista Ivan Yaremchuk joined Ministry five years ago after making the move from One Love Coffee in Kyiv, where he won national awards for his deft use of the espresso machine: “We had a different history of coffee consumption than the West; there was no Starbucks or Caffe Nero back in Ukraine, so we missed out on that second wave, then specialty roasters came along all at once; suddenly everyone wanted a nice drink and to better understand how it was made.”

Now Yaremchuk champions fruit-forward Ethiopian roasts, and airy cardamom and choux buns from nearby bakery Soulmates, alongside his fellow countrymen. In the past year, he’s been joined behind the counter by two additional One Love alums, who together have collected hundreds of pounds of beans donated from nearby cafes and shipped them to the soldiers on the frontlines back home.

A more nostalgic Ukrainian coffee experience is also available in Warsaw, if you know where to look. Husband and wife Oleg and Inna Yarovyj relocated here from Kyiv in 2015, then opened Dobro & Dobro, which holds the record for Poland’s smallest coffee shop. They’ve since expanded to Wroclaw and Krakow, but when I paid a visit to their original location, a few blocks south of Savior Square, where the line out the door for their signature brew was hard to miss. “Out of superstition, Ukrainians drink coffee with cinnamon on Thursdays,” Inna told me, “because it’s supposed to ensure prosperity and wealth.” The spice has been the secret to their success.

Ministry of Coffee serves high-quality roasts, with pastries from nearby bakery Soulmates.

Lviv Croissants has seen a less expected boost. The popular Ukrainian bakery chain made international headlines in the early weeks of the war when Angelina Jolie showed up at one of its native outlets in her role as a United Nations Refugee Agency ambassador. She hosted a lunch with local children, and raised the profile of the bakery in the process. Interest in the croissant sandwiches, stuffed with everything from cheeseburgers to boozy cherry confit and mascarpone cream, has skyrocketed. Lviv Croissants now has a prime location on the north end of Nowy Świat in Warsaw, in the heart of the Royal Route, a historic path that runs eight miles from Warsaw Castle to the 17th-century royal residence Wilanów.

For a culinary adventure, it’s best to explore the heart of that route on foot. Lviv Croissants stands next door to Pijana Wiśnia, or “drunk cherry.” It’s another Lviv import; the bar is famed for its heady cherry-infused cognac liqueur, a spirited staple found in every Ukrainian household. A few doors further up, and you’ll spot the neon glow over the terrace of Czarnomorka, where owner Olga Kopylova, who began her restaurant empire as a waitress in Crimea before the Russian annexation, made her name dishing out hulking plates of Black Sea comfort foods like oysters, mussels, and fresh-fried mackerel by the pound. When I first arrived the dining room was empty, while some babushkas were browsing the market counter. A manager, also from Ukraine, pointed me toward a darkened, covered driveway outside, which leads to the chandelier-lit garden that stays crowded with patrons until midnight.

At the south end of the Royal Route, just below the president’s current residence, the 16th-century neoclassical Belweder Palace, stands the more modest Krym, where husband and wife owners Elmira Seit-Akhmetova and Ernest Suleimanov recreate homestyle Tatar cuisine from their native Crimea, with a sense of affection, and rebellion—their restaurant is across the street from the Russian embassy. As Suleimanov explained over a plate of chebruki, a fried mincemeat turnover that he quickly taught me to roll up and eat like a wrap, most people don’t understand how many simple Soviet dishes are classically Tatar. The muddling of origins dates back to Soviet government-published cookbooks of his youth, like the wildly popular Book of Tasty and Healthy Food, which collected recipes from various regions and rebranded them for generations as simply ‘Soviet.’

At Krym, a husband-and-wife duo recreate homestyle Tatar cuisine from their native Crimea, like chebruki.

It’s much like the story of milk bars, which date back to 1896, when a Polish farmer introduced the concept of a low-cost dairy cafe. As with Tatar cooking, they were later rebranded and expanded under Communist rule for decades—now, Poles and Ukrainians are among the many who treasure these institutions. Adjacent to the new, four-star Barcelo Hotel Powisle, a building was papered over with blue and yellow paste-ups that advertised a “Milk Bar Coming Soon.” This isn’t Christina Tosi’s dessert spot, but the famed Kyiv bakery and breakfast brand, which was already fulfilling takeaway orders for its signature Kyiv layer cake, a stack of hazelnut sponge cake and praline cream. Also on offer are gift boxes that open to reveal not just precious rum and hazelnut chocolates, but a 3-D pop-up illustration of a more placid Kyiv, before the bombing began. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder than the businesses Ukrainians have built in Warsaw are, more than anything, a lifeline to the tastes and feeling of home.