Ukraine’s national dish of pork fat is a dense, white, chewy treat that can become an acquired taste. However, a new restaurant transforms the traditional dish, molding it into kitsch edible sculptures and even “sushi.”
Pork fat is “a cult dish and we decided to turn it into a cult art object,” said Mark Zarkhin, the co-owner of the restaurant.
Known as salo in Ukrainian, the pork fat comes in numerous varieties, ranging from smoked to streaky to pure white blubber. It is often sprinkled with paprika and washed down with a shot of vodka.
Photo: AFP
Named simply “Salo,” Zarkhin’s restaurant opened in June in the western city of Lviv and also markets itself as a museum of the lardy delicacy.
On the menu are kitsch offerings including a copy of the penis of Michelangelo’s David, stuffed with potato dumplings, and an anatomically accurate “Van Gogh’s Ear.”
There is even a local version of Japanese sushi — ubiquitous in Ukraine’s trendy restaurants — made from smoked pork fat.
Zarkhin, a businessman, says the restaurant mildly mocks the national love for salo.
“We are being ironic about ourselves and about our tastes,” he said.
However, he himself raves about the food’s versatility, insisting that it can be much more than a savory snack.
“People think of salo as either salty or smoked. They can hardly believe that this food can be more like cream. You add some ginger and cinnamon and it becomes a wonderful filling for chocolates,” he said.
The menu even offers desserts of whipped pork fat dipped in chocolate and a frozen “ice cream” dish based on actress Marilyn Monroe’s famous pout, called “Monroe’s Lips.”
The restaurant is aimed more at tourists than locals in the country’s poorer western region. Prices go up to 200 hryvnas (US$25) for the most expensive dish, David’s penis, which serves three.
The interior is scattered with objets d’art made from pork fat, including a model of a human heart, complete with a motor to simulate its beating — but without the blocked arteries likely to ensue from over-indulgence.
Visitors were enthusiastic about the restaurant.
“Wow, this is amazing,” said Maria Alexeyeva, who was visiting from Kiev with her sister Anna. “It’s very good and the interior is really cute. There’s nothing like this in Kiev.”
Zarkhin opened the restaurant together with a German artist of Ukrainian origin, Boris Berger, who came up with the idea.
“At the start, we weren’t sure this could be done,” he said. “Our chefs were also baffled ... but after three months of reflection, we finally got there.”
He is keen for the restaurant to become known as a gallery and has invited a series of artists to create sculptures from pork fat.
“Pork fat is a new material for art. Yes, it doesn’t last long, but neither does ice and it is used for sculptures all over the world,” he said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the