Drink in the Ukrainian Revolution at Dizyngoff, a New Hipster Haunt in Odessa
Dizyngoff, the newly opened Israeli-Parisian-Asian fusion restaurant, is halfway between the Potemkin Stairs and the majestic statue of Catherine the Great that replaced one of Lenin in the early nineties. It’s slogan? “Casual dining and optimistic bar.”
Odessan cuisine is a motley melange of Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Moldovan, and Jewish influences. Classic dishes like forshmak and tzimmes can still be found on the menus of most upscale restaurants, even those where the young servers who wait tables have no idea about their Jewish provenance. On the other hand authentic, Jewish cuisine is oddly hard to come by in a port town where the Jewish population stood at approximately 180,000 people before World War II. Hebron is a kosher fallafel shack attached to one the city’s main synagogues, but its sandwiches would not pass muster on any corner of any street in the Middle East. Rosemary was Odessa’s only serious kosher restaurant, but it closed down several years ago.