Out of the way, near the Brompton Cemetery, behind an unassuming shop window, a cosy little restaurant is hiding. It is named Mriya, which means dream in Ukrainian. The small restaurant has a short menu of Ukrainian dishes, in Ukrainian and English.

When we arrived, a fiery horseradish infused shot of vodka, to go with a canapé with Salo (a slice of salt-cured pork subcutaneous fat), which we'd pre-booked was waiting for us. An excellent start to the meal.

For once, we decided on a wine first, and chose a Ukrainian white wine from the Odesa region. It was nice and crisp, and worked fine with the rest of our dishes.

As our starters we shared the Matthias forshmak, chopped herring served with boiled potatoes, onions, and eggs; and a cheburek, a deed-fried turnover filled with (in our case) a four cheese blend. We enjoyed the forshmak with some bread and whipped butter.

After our starters, my wife picked as her main the salted cheese varenyky (dumplings) with wild garlic pesto. The filling was flavourful, with the wild-garlic pesto adding a bit of a kick. I decided on the Kyiv fried chicken, with mashed potato. The chicken was filled with a delightful garlic butter, and had a nice crisp coating. The mash was very smooth, and was served with two sauces.

After all of this, we also decided on a sour cherry varenyky to share as desert. And to round our meal off, we enjoyed that with a shot of a sour-cherry infused vodka. Budmo!