Cookbook author Anna Voloshyna takes residence in Oxbow Public Market, and she’s bringing the buttery chicken Kyiv.
Anna Voloshyna never dreamed of opening a restaurant. The chef and author has been busy planning a tour for her second cookbook, hosting events and fundraisers, and running her IACP award-winning Instagram account, all celebrating the cooking of her native Ukraine. But she got talked into a residency at Rotation by Feast It Forward at Oxbow Public Market in Napa, which means she’s effectively opening the only Ukrainian restaurant in wine country — if only for the month of July.
“People have been bugging me forever,” Voloshyna says. “Like, ‘Where can we try your food?’” Or any Ukrainian food, anywhere across the Bay Area, for that matter?
Northern California is home to a few small food businesses that proudly rep Ukraine, including Leleka focusing on dumpling delivery in SF, San Mateo and Sunnyvale; Natalia’s Dacha serving honey cakes at Napa County farmers markets; and the Borsch Mobile truck bringing beet soup to the people across the Bay Area. And plenty of restaurants serve more broadly Eastern European–inspired menus with similar dishes. But given the context of the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine, Voloshyna has doubled down on specifically showcasing the hearty dishes and fermented flavors of her home country, and can’t wait to serve a sit-down dinner experience…