The Only Ukrainian Restaurant in Wine Country Pops Open for One Month This Summer
Anna Voloshyna never dreamed of opening a restaurant. The chef and author has been busy planning a tour for her second cookbook, hosting events and fundraisers, and running her IACP award-winning Instagram account, all celebrating the cooking of her native Ukraine. But she got talked into a residency at Rotation by Feast It Forward at Oxbow Public Market in Napa, which means she’s effectively opening the only Ukrainian restaurant in wine country — if only for the month of July.
“People have been bugging me forever,” Voloshyna says. “Like, ‘Where can we try your food?’” Or any Ukrainian food, anywhere across the Bay Area, for that matter?
Northern California is home to a few small food businesses that proudly rep Ukraine, including Leleka focusing on dumpling delivery in SF, San Mateo and Sunnyvale; Natalia’s Dacha serving honey cakes at Napa County farmers markets; and the Borsch Mobile truck bringing beet soup to the people across the Bay Area. And plenty of restaurants serve more broadly Eastern European–inspired menus with similar dishes. But given the context of the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine, Voloshyna has doubled down on specifically showcasing the hearty dishes and fermented flavors of her home country, and can’t wait to serve a sit-down dinner experience.
“This is the place where Ukrainian cuisine and culture will be celebrated, and I will shout about it nonstop for the whole month,” she says.
Rotation is a new project from Katie Hamilton Shaffer of Feast It Forward, the events space and media network across the street from Oxbow. She took over a restaurant in a corner of the market, welcoming star guest chefs from across the country. The month-long chef residencies kicked off in February with Martin Yan from SF, followed by Tristen Epps from Houston and Lee Anne Wong from Honolulu, showcasing Chinese, Trinidadian, and Hawaiian flavors, respectively. None of these chefs phoned it in — Voloshyna’s staying in a cottage in Napa for the month, along with her husband and little wolf of a dog. She’ll be shopping the farmers market and working closely in the kitchen with Rotation executive chef Jeff Mosher and his team.
They’re throwing down a full menu, focusing on classics presented in a modern and refined way, Voloshyna says. A meal might start with beet-pickled deviled eggs with smoked trout roe, varenyky (dumplings) stuffed with farmer cheese and confit pork belly, and kholodnyk (chilled borsch) with refreshing raw veggies. Diners won’t want to miss the quintessential chicken Kyiv — “with a crispy crust and inside garlic butter — what’s not to love?” Voloshyna says. She’s already fermenting beet kvass to season the shpundra (braised short ribs), best served over banosh (polenta) with brynza sheep cheese and crispy onions. The grilled squash with preserved lemons comes from her first cookbook; the roasted eggplant with herbed yogurt will be in her second. And sour cream, pickles and fresh dill scatter across everything.
Desserts include a sunflower semifreddo inspired by childhood snacks of sunflower halva: “That flavor is carved into my brain,” Voloshyna says. She grew up in a small town named Snihurivka in the south, a couple of hours from Odesa, surrounded by “fields and fields” of sunflowers. Despite the war, Ukraine remains a leading exporter of sunflower oil, so those cooking and finishing oils are foundational flavors, and the flowers shine as a national symbol of resilience.
Rotation serves its own menu at lunch, although Voloshyna will slide in at least one special — khachapuri. The Georgian cheese boats are now wildly popular across Ukraine. Shaffer, the owner, curates the wine list, focusing on locals from Napa and Sonoma, and cocktails include a signature old fashioned with bourbon washed in duck fat.
Rotation is located toward the back of Oxbow, across from Hog Island Oyster Co. It’s not simply a market stall; it’s a generous restaurant with 5,000 square feet and 125 seats, centered on an open kitchen with a wood-fired oven. Voloshyna plans to set up a cookbook display for anyone who wants to buy a signed copy of her first cookbook, Budmo! (“cheers!” in Ukrainian), or preorder her second.
When Voloshyna published Budmo! in the fall of 2022, Russia had already been occupying Ukraine since 2014. It launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, bringing even more bittersweet meaning to this collection of recipes celebrating the foods Voloshyna grew up with. Since then, she spent three years researching her second book Ukraïne, which comes out this October, traveling to many regions and near the frontline, gathering recipes, essays and photos. At a time when her country is fighting for its existence, she believes in the importance of calling even the most humble bowl of borsch Ukrainian. “We need to remember the roots and honor the culture,” she says.
Whether folks are tasting her food at the restaurant or trying one of her recipes at home, Voloshyna hopes to help them understand and appreciate Ukrainian cooking. “Because of this war, we remembered who we are as a nation,” she says. “Food is one way to showcase, ‘This is who we are.’ We want to show that to the world. We are not Russia. We are Ukraine.”
Rotation by Feast It Forward is open Monday and Tuesday noon–3 p.m.; Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday noon–8 p.m.; and Friday and Saturday noon–9 p.m. Anna Voloshyna will be in residency for the month of July, and reservations are live.
