Russian restaurant menus change ‘Chicken Kyiv’ to 'Chicken Donbas’

Restaurants in Russia have begun to change the name of ‘Chicken Kyiv’ to ‘Chicken Donbas’, it has been claimed.

Restaurant menus have been posted to Twitter showing changes to listings for “Kyiv cutlet” – the Russian name for the world-renowned chicken dish stuffed with garlic.

Some establishments appear to have changed the name to “Donbas cutlet”, referencing an area of Ukraine which is home to two pro-Russian breakaway regions recognised by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, others appear to have dubbed the meal a “druzhba” (friendship) cutlet.

Another menu shows the dish – which is a chicken breast stuffed with garlic butter and coated in breadcrumbs - called simply “chicken cutlet with butter”.

In Poland, popular dumpling dish “ruskie pierogi" – dumplings with cheese and potato - has been renamed in many places as “ukraińskie pierogi” in response to the war.

The origins of Chicken Kyiv have been long disputed. The Russian Tea Room Cookbook states that the dish was "most likely” a creation of French chef Marie-Antoine Carême at the Court of Russian emperor Alexander I in the early 1800s.

Earlier this month, Sainsbury’s became the first UK supermarket to rename its Chicken Kiev dish “Chicken Kyiv” in support of Ukraine following a social media campaign. Kyiv, the name of Ukraine’s capital city, is a spelling derived from the Ukrainian language name, while Kiev is from the Russian language name for the city.

In 2003, some American restaurants renamed French fries “freedom fries” in a political response to France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq.