Yevhen Klopotenko

He was born on November 23, 1986, in Kyiv, USSR (Ukraine) — Ukrainian chef, restaurateur, social activist, researcher of Ukrainian cuisine, blogger, and TV presenter. He is the ideologist of the social project to improve the food culture Cult Food, co-founder of the restaurant "100 Rokiv Tomu Vpered" (Kyiv) and the bistro "Inshi" (Lviv). Popularizer of Ukrainian cuisine in the world cultural and culinary arena, initiator of the inclusion of borscht in the UNESCO list of intangible heritage.

School No. 130, where Yevhen Klopotenko studied, had an exchange program for students from other countries. Yevhen took part in it and, in 1995, went to Italy. Italian food also influenced the child's consciousness.

After school, Yevhen entered the Kyiv University of Tourism, Economics and Law at the Faculty of International Relations and got an opportunity to do an internship abroad. That is how he got into a German McDonald's. Later, he worked as a cook in a Mexican restaurant in the USA.

After graduating from university, he worked as a waiter and administrator at Dmytro Borysov’s restaurant and his company, Dmytro Borysov’s Family of Restaurants. At the same time, Yevhen began organizing the CookWars show, where amateur cooks competed. Their task was to prepare a dish on a given theme, after which the guests sitting in the restaurant had to choose the best one.

After a while, the CookWars show closed, but thanks to it, Yevhen met Denys Slivnov, his business partner. In 2011, they opened a jam production company called Gastromasterskaya Confiture.

In 2015, Yevhen Klopotenko took part in the 5th season of the Ukrainian cooking show "MasterChef", became its winner, and stated that he intends to change the culture of food in Ukraine.

In the summer of 2016, Yevhen went to Paris, where he studied at the French culinary school Le Cordon Bleu. After graduating, Yevhen Klopotenko returned to Ukraine and started working on changing the food culture in the country. First, he created his own culinary website, where his author's recipes are published. He published his culinary articles in many online publications.

Yevhen runs a YouTube channel where he publishes video recipes. In 2016, Yevhen Klopotenko launched the social project Cult Food, which improves the food system in Ukrainian school canteens and reforms culinary education at one of Kyiv's culinary colleges, which will become an example for other educational institutions in the future.

In 2017, Yevhen Klopotenko's team received a grant from the Auchan Foundation for Youth to create new food recipes for schools in Ukraine. The result of the project, based on feedback from more than 1,500 parents and students, was the development of 110 unique recipes, later included in the collection. In December 2018, the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection issued the Conclusion of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Expertise, which granted permission to implement the program. On February 6, 2019, a press conference was held to summarize the interim results of the New School Feeding program, and on February 21, the compendium was published on the project website. Immediately after the publication about the introduction of a new school menu, some cities, such as Poltava, Kremenchuk, Rivne, Ternopil, Kakhovka, announced the introduction of new school meals.

Since the beginning of the Cult Food project, about 5,000 schools across Ukraine have introduced new meals. Thanks to the Cult Food program, which has a social focus on improving nutrition for schoolchildren, students started eating tasty and healthy meals.

In 2020, the issue of improving the nutrition system in schools in Ukraine was raised at the state level. In 2020-2021, there were significant changes in the legislative norms regulating the nutrition of children in educational institutions: both schools and kindergartens. New Sanitary Regulations and the Procedure and norms of nutrition in educational institutions have been adopted, methodological recommendations on procurement have been developed, funds are actively allocated for the refurbishment of canteens, and HACCP is being introduced.

In 2021, Yevhen Klopotenko and the Cult Food team, as part of a working group initiated by First Lady Olena Zelenska, developed new four-week menus for school cafeterias that include balanced and modern recipes.

His signature recipe book, "Tempted by Food. 70 Recipes You’ll Want to Make," was published in 2019.

He made the list of the Top 10 stylish men according to ELLE MAN AWARDS 2019.

In 2020, Yevhen Klopotenko signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and began to cover the reform of vocational education, namely to contribute to improving the level of training of chefs.

In 2020, the second book, "Ukrainian Cuisine in 70 Dishes," was published, containing 70 of Yevhen's authored recipes influenced by his research into the history of Ukrainian cuisine.

In April 2021, Yevhen Klopotenko was included in the authoritative international list of "50 Next", innovators of gastronomy changing the future of this industry, from The World's 50 Best Restaurants international ranking. He was included in the list for "improving gastronomic culture in Ukraine and popularizing Ukrainian cuisine in the world."

In October 2021, the book "Holiday Meals" was published. It includes 70 author's recipes of dishes for the most important events celebrated by Ukrainians.

Also in 2021, Yevhen and Ihor Mezentsev conducted a gastronomic tour for European journalists from Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, and Hungary to get acquainted with the gastronomic culture of Kyiv and promote Ukraine on the world gastronomic arena.

The World Influencers and Bloggers Awards 2022 named Yevhen food blogger of the year.

On October 6, 2020, the Expert Council on Intangible Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine included Ukrainian borscht in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage Elements. It took Yevhen about 1.5 years to get borscht included in this list. For this purpose, he created a public organization "Institute of Culture of Ukraine." After that, several borscht expeditions were carried out, during which dozens of family recipes of borscht from different parts of Ukraine were collected.

In August 2020, the documentary "Borsch. The Secret Ingredient" was released with support from the USAID Foundation.

The next step in the campaign was the inclusion of borscht in UNESCO's list of intangible heritage.

Articles about the "battle over borscht" appeared in a number of foreign publications, notably The Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

On July 1, 2022, at the 5th extraordinary session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Ukrainian borscht was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.