Where to stay and where to eat: Ivano-Frankivsk

This restaurant is on top of Ivano-Frankivsk in the Legenda Center right next door to the old  City Hall. It is one of the group of best restaurants in the City, along with the other  restaurants the Franko, Bristol and Churchill. It is built at the top of the building with two  floors. The top floor is on the roof terrace and very enjoyable in warm weather. The main  restaurant is to be found on the floor below which is open all year round.  They have a long well-rounded menu, like most restaurants that is served professionally and  in a friendly manner. Few of the staff wants to speak English, because English speaking  tourists are few in number. But that does not present any type of problem since there are full  English menus. Prices are reasonable for both food and wine and represent excellent value. I  have eaten veal, steaks, salads, dried meat plate, crepes filled with meats and crepes filled  with fruits. This restaurant is a strong recommendation, especially on hot afternoons or on  warm evening on the roof top floor.  The views are great and a favorite venue for wedding parties after the wedding. The  photographers use the background of the City and the rolling hills as background for the  official wedding photographs. Just watching the newlyweds and their friends and families is  also a new cultural experience. The registry office and three churches are located around the  old city hall and marriage activity reaches its peak on Saturday afternoons…

This hotel is on the third and fourth floors at the top atrium part of a new building next to the main square where the old city hall is located. It is a small hotel that has eleven comfortable  and well planned rooms on both floors. The rooms on the upper floors only have skylight  windows and there you miss the views over the city but since most people only use the hotel for sleeping this is not a negative factor. The rooms and bathrooms are in excellent condition  and kept perfectly clean. The beds are comfortable and the air-conditioning modern and  quiet. All the rooms have large flat screen TV’s with sixty channels and they have a fast  reliable LAN that is freely available for guests in the rooms.

The staff at the reception was a series of young ladies all of whom spoke excellent English.  They knew their way around the city and were proactively helpful. The hotel has one top  class restaurant, the Churchill. They also have a smart café that faces a tree-lined square at  the back of the hotel. This square is an attractive rather peacefully grand area devoid of shops  and commerce. This square houses two of the big churches and facing west. The terrace of  the café is a fine place to sit and enjoy a glass of wine or light meal on a summer afternoon or  evening. The guests at the hotel enjoy a 10% discount here like in the Churchill. They have a  good selection of food and wine at attractive prices. An excellent place to cool off in the city  and especially interesting to watch the locals relaxing like the Legenda Restaurant..

This hotel was opened in the summer of 2010 and I was one of the first guests. It is unusual  because it is to be found in the grounds of city’s synagogue. The owner is a practicing Jewish  businessman and the small restaurant where they serve breakfast and light meals is Kosher. This is a jewel of a hotel and is in many ways similar to Atrium Hotel. It is a quiet small and  comfortable hotel of international standards. The rooms are spacious and naturally modern  since the hotel is so new. The staff speaks excellent English and like elsewhere do their best  to see that guest receive good service. The hotel offers an fast and reliable WiFi network that was included in the price. All the  rooms had flat screen televisions.  The hotel is centrally located in the best part of the city right next to the City Hall.

This restaurant is located on the corner of the main market square right in the middle of the  City.  This is the best restaurant in Ivano-Frankivsk and one of the best restaurants in Ukraine that  is on par with many of the restaurants I have ever visited in Europe.

The food and service, as well as the surroundings are excellent restaurant.  There are many local Ukrainian dishes that change according to the season from an additional  long list of international food. The presentation and flavors are very good and quite  exceptional given that Ivano-Frankivsk is a rather remote city! The staff is professional and  we had no problem with English. The menu is also in English accompanied with informative  pictures. The interior and the summer terrace are of a high quality and very comfortable. Thick linen  table clothes and napkins adorn the table with plenty of other decorations. It feels that you are  going somewhere special.

The restaurant is along one of the streets just off the center of town. The location is almost  central and the street is a pleasant residential area. It has windows facing the street and is  decorated like a traditional English club in dark wood panels, heavy curtains and lots of old  pictures of people like Winston Churchill. The tables and chairs are heavy oak things that are  comfortable and the total effect is pleasing to the eye and not overdone.

We only had the opportunity to enjoy one evening in the Bristol and although the menu was  in English we found it rather tricky to communicate with the staff since they were disinclined  to speak in English! Waitresses are far more willing to speak English in Ivano-Frankivsk than  the waiters and in both the Bristol and in the Churchill we only had waiters. The owner’s daughter however solved the problem – she was called down by the waiters and went through the menu and took our order.  The quality of the menu and of the food is excellent. They have many excellent traditional  Ukrainian dishes and lots of marinated salad with herbs. It is only one notch below that of the  Franko but of a high standard and like Franko this restaurant also represents excellent value.

This restaurant belongs to the Atrium Hotel and is located just below the ground floor on the other side of the building from the hotel’s main entrance. This is decorated, as its name suggests, like the Bristol but resembles an English pub rather than a club restaurant. Like the other similar restaurants it has a long and varied menu. There are no windows since but the careful lighting and attractive decorations make up for this.

This is a smart new German style beer hall style restaurant in the cellar in the center of town. You enter by going through an archway and down some steps in to the entrance of the restaurant. The few of the staff speak excellent English and handle their guests in an efficient and professional manner. Reservations in advance are absolutely necessary because this restaurant is very popular with local folk. It is full almost every evening – the reason is that the food and beer are excellent and great value for money The menu is not very long but it is varied. It has a selection of traditional starters to go with beer, an excellent salad selection with main dishes

This is the main hotel in Ivano-Frankivsk that everyone knows about and recommends. It is a  large square building that has been entirely renovated to accommodate the largest hotel in the  City. It has a spacious busy reception area with the large restaurant on both sides. One side is  open to guests and the general public and the other is used for weddings, seminars and events  like fashion shows.

The rooms are modestly furnished, relatively large and light. Large windows face out on to  the square in front of the hotel and the rooms at the back face a quite park full of large trees.  All the rooms have television sand WiFi but the best reception is downstairs in the reception  area.  This is a popular hotel used by tourists arriving by bus from Ukraine’s western neighbors. As  a large hotel it is generally the first hotel recommended by travel agents so it sees a lot of  different nationalities as well as having its fair share of wedding parties. It is an interesting  place to be to see such diversity.

Right outside the hotel in a corner of the same building there is a large food supermarket that  is frequented by guests and locals. They sell many take-away foods and beverages that can be  consumed in the hotel room or on tables and chairs on the terrace outside the supermarket.  The restaurant has a huge menu as do most of the other restaurants in the city. The service is  professional and friendly.

This is a new small brightly lit café near to the city hall. It is a fashionable interesting place in  a modern European renovated workshop style café. They have a varied long menu featuring  waffles (sweet and salty toppings), salads, milk shakes, freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable drinks and a lot of small hot dishes at excellent prices. They also serve up beer from the keg  and have excellent coffees.  It is a small cozy place that functions efficiently. The staff is friendly and appears to  themselves surprised that Ivano-Frankivsk has at last such an interesting and modern place to  drop in to in the afternoon or evening.

This is a really smart coffee shop that offers the best coffee in the City with many different  types of coffees and teas.  It is located just outside the City Town Hall right in the center of town.  Even though is is part of a huge chain of coffee shops through Eastern Europe the quality of  service and of their beverages is excellent.