It?s almost a given that every year the owners of Soho American steakhouse remodel their basement and give it a completely different look. The area began as a nightclub, which being far from the center never proved too popular, and then became a pizzeria and strip club (both of which still exist), and to all this has been added a new restaurant called Eclair.

From what we hear, all the changes form part of a larger, grander scheme for the whole complex, which earlier housed the elite, women?s only club ?Beverly Hills? (now defunct). And if you guessed by the name ?Eclair? that this place serves lots of desserts, you?d be right, too.

In fact, sweets happen to be the raison d?etre for this place, and with 65 items on the dessert menu, that?s fairly obvious. They don?t encourage diners to sample every dish, but to enjoy the ones they sample.

Chef Yuriy Levin specializes in desserts and confections, so the place has essentially been worked around his talents. Levin has lots of original creations on the menu, as well as good takes on standards such as tiramisu, American cheesecake, meringue pies, pudding, mousses, fruit pies, cakes and even sweet varenyki. Belgian chocolatier Ghirardelli provides much of the chocolate, with other ingredients imported directly from the United States.

 

Eclair

82 Artema, 484-1668.

Open daily from 11 a.m. till 11 p.m.

 

?Guinness for strength?

With St. Patrick?s Day just over the horizon, Guinness seems to be a drink more and more bars are willing to take a chance on. When we recently did a ?Best of Kyiv? search for bars serving the traditional Irish stout, we found only five places purveying the stuff. We even greatly exaggerated the demise of Carambol, the billiards club off Horodetskoho. (Turns out when we did the search they decided to renovate without putting a sign up in the window.)

Anyway, and to the point, two new places have opened up serving Guinness (among other things). First there?s the aptly named Guinness Pub in Obolon and the BierStadt (?Beer City?) beer hall near the U.S. embassy.

I spotted the latter easily enough in the restaurant pages of a recent Afisha magazine ? they have daily specials on a range of imported beers; Wednesday is Guinness and Kilkenny ? but the former I stumbled upon with my girlfriend. While heading to Minska metro station after walking along the riverbank in the city?s north end, we saw the ?Guinness Pub? sign on the side of an ugly new building and my first thought was, ?There?s no way they have Guinness on tap.? She bet that they did. She won.

Run by the guys who do the Planeta Sport sports bar, Guinness Pub is a quiet little place with some Irish and Scotch whiskeys behind the bar, a good selection of house wines by the glass and, of course, an assortment of beers. In addition to Guinness they have Murphy?s Irish stout, Hoegaarden, Erdinger, Stella Artois, Chernihivske and a few more. They even have cigars from the Fortuna cigar shop in a humidor.

Price for the pint of Guinness? Hr 26.

It should be pointed out that at BierStadt they boast of having 40 different beers in stock (though not all on tap) and live music on weekend nights.

 

GUINNESS PUB

24 Heroyiv Stalinhradu, 230-523.

Open daily from 11 a.m. till midnight.