The Two Minute Review: Lucy

Ronan Doyle
Aug 19
2 min read

What’s the story with Lucy?

When we think of front lines, we tend to picture trenches, not plates, but war is waged not just in uniform, but in culture too - in language, in literature, even in food. We know a thing or two about that in Ireland - they know a lot about it in Ukraine.

Baker Mykola Kuleshov has named this new Clanbrassil Street café Lucy (where Clanbrassil House used to be) after his grandmother, from whom many of the recipes first came. Like many of her storied generation, she remains in Ukraine, not willing to cede her culture. In sharing and celebrating it here in her name, Lucy offers its own act of resistance.

What should we have?

Get your pyrizhky orders in the minute you sit down. These gold-crusted stuffed brioche buns (€4), made by hand here in several variations, are shocks of (sometimes literally) jam-packed flavour waiting to be torn open and gulped down.

We loved the ruby-red cherry with a sharp sour tang to balance out the bread’s sweetness. It’s just as good a pairing for savoury flavours, with a juicy, salty ground chicken and mushroom stew seeping through its soft crags for chewy, meaty mouthfuls.

Varenyky (€14) bear a lot of resemblance to Polish pierogi, and share many of the pyrizhky fillings – a well-buttered and salted mashed potato was our choice. Take the optional fried onion, mushroom and sour cream in abundance - these toppings might look like mere dressing, but there’s an intense, earthy flavour and creamy texture that the dumplings need to really deliver.

Ukrainians know their way around a spud just as well as the Irish, and in deruny (€14) we have their answer to boxty. More of those mushrooms offer another savoury kick alongside the salty slap of crisp bacon – there’s fun to be had combining forkfuls of crisp-skinned soft potato pancake with both to your perfect balance. As a heaving brunch plate this will go a long way to starting the day – a sprinkle of sharp chive to cut through the rich layers would improve it further.

Cakes are a cornerstone of the bustling business Kuleshov and his wife Viktoriia Horbonos built up before opening a sit-down site, delivering much-missed tastes of home to Ukrainians across the city. One bite of honey cake (€7) makes the fanbase easy to understand - richly sweet from artisan Irish honey, its fourteen layers of thin-rolled dough sandwich sweet cream in a delicately delicious slice.

Raisin-studded cottage cheese makes a more sour-sweet treat of the babka (€6), its grainy texture coated in Belgian dark chocolate. Versus the light and lively honey cake it’s a far denser dessert, best suited to coffee and cake rather than a full meal finale. The caramelised cream cigar that is the waffle milk (€4.30) meanwhile... Sure it’s only a small thing, we couldn’t say no - neither should you.

Why should we go?

In the floral crockery smuggled out of seized Ukrainian land, just as much as the delicious food Lucy serves on it, there's culinary history heaped high here, and a proud sense of a cuisine and a culture worth fighting for.