Kharkiv-raised Daria Grositskaya won the Hell’s Kitchen TV show and is now chef at Under Wonder in Kyiv. She loves cooking Italian, Georgian and Ukrainian dishes.
A woman in the kitchen, a woman and a kitchen: these notions feel comfortable and familiar to everyone. Making food has always been something magical and ritual. But at the same time, technique, accuracy and calculation are part of the multilayered gastronomic puzzle.
Could I have imagined that choosing products and creating dishes would become my life’s work? No and yes. Let me tell you how I, Daria Grositskaya, became the chef at Under Wonder.
I spent my childhood in Kharkiv, a big industrial city. But for me it will always be my native land, which let my ambitious fantasies grow and gave me the chance to become who I am.
It might be hard to believe, but at 10 I was already cooking by myself. It wasn’t because there was nobody else to do it: I just really enjoyed choosing and combining tastes, aromas and textures. My so-called masterpieces were edible; everything else about them should, of course, be judged with my maximalism and lack of knowledge in mind. That’s how, without realizing it, I managed to study, goof off a little and cook.
When it was time to choose a profession, I didn’t even think about cooking. I was sure everyone could cook. Do you remember Marshak’s rhyme: “my mother is a cook, so what’s the big deal?” And like every serious, modern girl, I planned to enter the “brides’ faculty” and study foreign languages at the teachers’ university.
But I’m sure that somewhere there are those who shape our fate, and mine decided to step in right away. Almost on the eve of my entrance exams, one friendly phone call changed my mind. When I put the phone down, I was 100% sure I would learn culinary skills, take notes on techniques for creating dishes and chop kilos of onions. And you know what? I’ve never regretted it.
A degree with honors, a heart full of enthusiasm and a hungry fire in my eyes. Just a month after finishing my studies, I became a chef’s assistant. I was very surprised to find that my learning didn’t stop. On the contrary, that was the moment my real universities began. It was hard, but interesting and cool!
I’m persistent, but not stubborn. Perhaps that’s what helped me plunge into a whirlwind of TV adventures.
The Hell’s Kitchen show was a test of spirit, stamina and firmness, and only then of professional skills. And I passed it. Am I proud? Of course I am: I deserved that victory.
I don’t think I’d like to host a TV cooking show or have a blog, which is a modern trend now. Real-life relationships are very important to me, and I like to get criticism from my guests as well as praise. At home and in the restaurant, I’m both the director and an actress on the kitchen stage. That artistic adrenaline can’t be compared with anything else, and it motivates me to make discoveries, inventions and experiments.
Yes, I keep trying new things. Italy, Georgia and, of course, Ukraine are countries with a unique and stylish gastronomic history, and I cook their dishes with great pleasure. I love the combinations of colors and smells and the mix of tastes that these cuisines have so much of. But in general I can cook anything: I’m a very flexible and brave chef.
For our shoot, we will cook ravioli nero with salmon in cheese sauce and truffle paste, risotto with porcini and scallop, and dorado with vegetable tagliatelle. All of them are favorites of Under Wonder’s guests.
