History
A legendary restaurant with Centennial history
Today many Kyivans know LEO as a modern restaurant with a solid reputation located at the Park Lane. However the history of this restaurant is much more extensive and deeper!
It was named "Riviera" owing to its grand location overlooking picturesque views of Kyiv City.
It used to be a large mansion with its exterior design being the exact copy of the present one. To be more precise, "LEO" is the copy of "Riviera" since its has been reconstructed on the basis of several extant photographs of "Riviera" restaurant taken in 1930s of the last century: it still has the same three floors, plenty of windows, graceful turrets overlooking the Dnieper River from each side, lightness and noble lines of the attic floor…
Interior design of "Riviera" fully matched its exterior view: just as it is now "LEO", there used to be a "Gallery Hall" with marvelous baroque style interior design and a "Grand Piano Hall (now it is called "Piano Hall") with open-work chandeliers for holding public and private ceremonies. "Fireplace Hall" that used to be in "Riviera" looked very similar to the present "Hetman Hall". It fascinated everyone by a splendor of rich Ukrainian interior design and, just as it is now, it was a small room mainly intended for intimate meetings.
Just as it is now, back in 30s and later on, after the war, the GRAND Piano was always something special.
Sounds of this noble master have always been shaping the right mood for the visitors of the restaurant: the romantic, and sometimes playful, pensive or vigorous mood…The guest-night tradition with live music came to "LEO" from "Riviera" as well. Being somewhat previous, we would like to say that this shiny black aristocrat decorated with candles, saw Lubov Orlova, Faina Ranevskaya, Yuri Borisov…
The new establishment attracted the Kyiv bourgeois of those times, which was not particularly surprising because they would always lay the tables delicately here, the food was tasty and service was fine.
The restaurant was surrounded by a large open area and next to the slope there was an orchestra platform. The restaurant also had separate gazebos, and couples were awhirl on the dance floor…
In "Riviera", to the enchanting strains of a gypsy violin, waiters would serve "chicken Kiev" saturated with butter. The visitors ordered Chicken Tabaka with plenty of tkemali sauce. People would lavishly eat everything that was not available on shop shelves: black and red caviar, salmon and sturgeon … And responding to the call "The game!" - being a distinctive symbol of the soviet restaurants - the restaurant would serve baked partridges in berry sauce or hare stewed with Smetana (sour cream). With the pleasures of the table people would drink Georgian and Moldavian wines, Armenian cognac and "horilka z pertsem" (Ukrainian vodka bottled with hot chili peppers). It was a top class club-restaurant: with highly-trained waiters, irreproachable reputation, respectable public… Bankers, factory owners and army generals with their wives came here not only to taste some delicatessen marvels but also to meet people within their circles. The restaurant maintained its reputation indeed! Cooks preparing delicious dishes from European and Russian cuisines, musicians (both touring and local celebrities ) and headwaiters looking for a private place for a couple of lovers and a spacious one for a large company, had always been at service to the demanding visitors.
"Riviera" had become a popular place right from the date of its opening. Its luxury atmosphere was favorable for holding grand social events and for long-lasting homelike parties. For example at the end of December in 1935", for the first time after a long break formally imposed by the authorities, it was in "Riviera" where they decorated New-year fir tree and celebrated sumptuously the year 1936.
The story about the "first fir tree" is quite interesting and illustrative of those days: in 1929 the Bolsheviks canceled Christmas as a public holiday. Along with that they also canceled the fur tree decoration which they called a "priestlike" tradition. It got worse and worse as it went on: They also concealed and prohibited to celebrate the New Years Day. However, at the end of 1935 Pavel Postyshev wrote an article in "Pravda" newspaper under the heading "Let's arrange a fine fir tree for the kids on the New Year Day!" Kievans who had not forgotten this nice holiday reacted quite quickly and the Kyiv shops started to sell fir trees and ornaments for them. Pioneers and Komsomol members arranged children's matinees in schools, kindergartens and neighborhood clubs. And on the 19th of December the first New Year Tree appeared in Kyiv! - in Riviera restaurant itself. Thus, starting from 1935 the New Year Tree again entered the homes of Ukrainians (as well as the rest of the former USSR) and became a holiday which all enjoy to the present day.
There is another USSR public holiday the First of May, International Workers' Day was a good old tradition of "Riviera" restaurant. Every year on the first of May - an unheard of event for the Kyiv of those days - the restaurant laid an abundant table for free for all comers. The restaurant was full of various people, children, teenagers and elderly people who could eat to their heart's content and after that dance on the dance floor. This tradition became stable. During hard times in 30s, the restaurant started to regularly arrange free monthly lunches for the poor and dispatch a vehicle delivering food to Kyiv hospitals and orphanages for homeless children. Such charitable activity increased respect to the restaurant considerably: though being intended for the rich, "Riviera" cared about everyone.
Kyiv bohemians could be frequently seen among the visitors of "Riviera".
In 30s the municipal authorities started t on the slopes of Kyiv with a large leisure-time area that included restaurants, dance floors and amusement parks.
However the plans for creating a Kyiv "Broadway" had been disrupted by the war, which is why the major work started only after Kyiv was freed from Nazis.
During occupation of Kyiv "Riviera" led the guerrilla life. Everything looked quiet enough. The number of visitors decreased and jamborees stopped. The German language could be in its halls. However the Nazi did not understand right away that instead of real doorkeepers, cooks and waitresses there were guerillas, who hung on their every word and reported on the prospective plans to the quarter.
In 1943 when Nazis were retreating under pressure from the Red Army, they were blowing up the Kyiv's center, however in their haste they just forgot about the restaurant. Lost with Kyiv slopes "Riviera" managed to live through the war.
In 1947-49 the main street of the reconstructed Kyiv "Broadway" became Petrovskya Lane, not far from which there was located "Riviera" restaurant, summer caf?s, amusement parks, dance floors and sports grounds and an outdoor theatre…
In the late 1940s this entertainment park complex became very popular. And Petrovskaya Lane itself became the busiest place for walking in Kyiv.
Every party, anniversary, birthday would end up as a stroll along Petrovskaya Lane and this was the best and the only place in Kyiv for going for a walk! Along the Lane there were a lot of mobile refreshment bars with draught beer, fizzy drinks, sandwiches, pastries… And hospitable "Riviera" flung open its doors again to the visitors.
Kievans enjoyed visiting "Riviera" restaurant up to the mid 1960s. As soon the Khrushchev thaw ended the restaurant being the symbol of "bourgeois pastime" was closed formally. Noisy dance floors became deserted, the unique building was razed to the ground by excavators, and in the late 60s the history was almost forgotten, as if there had been nothing at all…
The legendary place would have been forgotten for good if "Riviera" had not been revived in the late 90s of the 20th century, having received a new name "LEO" and opening a new page of its history. So, just as it was almost 80 years ago the open doors of "LEO" are now warmly welcoming the bourgeois of the 21 century.
"LEO" always maintains its reputation just as "Riviera" did: status of the property, guest nights, rich public, club patrons and celebrities.
