Let's start with the positives: it's conveniently located very close to the monastery, and the place itself is worth a visit given it's extravagant decor. Food quantity was large if you're really hungry.
And now with the positives that lead us to 2 stars only:...- always pushing us to buy more - the sommelier showed up even before we had chosen what to eat encouraging us to go for a whole bottle of vine, and constantly refilling our glasses so we'd empty the bottle before we'd started eating
- they encouraged us to try the local soft drink (something we haven't heard of in any other Kiev restaurant) which was not very good and quite expensive
- all the dishes were ok but not very good; the bread was very average and stale
- the price of the salmon was per 100g and they served huge portions with large bones, resulting in a very large bill (about twice as big as all our other restaurant bills from much higher quality restaurants). We heard it's not uncommon for restaurants to price by g but in our 5 days in Kiev, we had never encountered it, and it was really not explicit this time.
All-in-all, while it was an expensive ok lunch, this all smelled too much "tourist trap" for us.More