At Ruta Ukrainian Restaurant, which opened in Bethesda in August, I’m all about the red and green when it comes to borscht, the Slavic soup commonly made with beets. Ruta offers two kinds: one a chunky broth red from beets and rife with potatoes, cabbage and chunks of braised beef, the other, also with potatoes but no beets, verdant from sorrel and spinach and punctuated with chopped hard-boiled eggs. Both are hearty cold-weather friends I’d be happy to hang out with all year long. The red version, tangy from vinegar and earthy from porcini mushroom stock, comes with pampushka, a yeast roll topped with chopped garlic and dill; sliced black bread accompanies its green sister soup. Sour cream is on hand to up the richness factor of both soups.
This is Ruta’s second location, the first having opened in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood in 2023. Director of operations and co-owner Ruslan Falkov, 33, who lives in Germantown, served as chief of staff at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington from 2017 to 2022. Arlington resident Mykola Yudin, 34, is the executive chef. He was the executive chef for Myastoriya, a chain of meat-centric restaurants in Ukraine, before taking a sous-chef job at the D.C. location of Ruta when it debuted. When the opening chef left six months in, Yudin took his place.
Ruta is named after a yellow flower that, according to Ukrainian legend, turns bright red on Ivana Kupala, a Slavic summer solstice celebration. A faux flora wall featuring the red flowers borders Ruta’s 28-seat patio in Woodmont Triangle. Inside, the 2,000-square-foot restaurant seats 56, including a 12-seat bar. The decor, with its bright orange upholstered side chairs and exposed brickwork, has a contemporary feel. Several walls—and the wooden salt and pepper shakers on each table—display Ukrainian refugee artist Nina Shostakovska’s hand-painted floral designs in the folk art style known as petrykivka. Ukrainian artists are also responsible for portraits of Ukrainian leaders and poets displayed throughout.
Many of Ruta’s signature cocktails, which lean toward sweetness, feature the Ukrainian horilka, a grain- or potato-based spirit similar to vodka. The Patriot, in which horilka, blue curacao and pineapple juice separate into the colors of the Ukrainian flag, is a good way to start a meal.
The fare at Ruta is rib-sticking stuff. It’s a no-brainer to start with an assortment of plump (but could be plumper) varenyky (dumplings), the four varieties stuffed with shredded braised short rib, mashed potatoes, chicken or sauerkraut. All are topped with sauteed onions and served with sour cream. A good strategy is to order the tsvikli, a delicious, bold salad of grated beets and fresh horseradish, and use it as a condiment, because all of the varenyky could stand to have their seasoning bumped up. (A little salt and pepper would go a long way.) Still, they satisfy the dumpling craving, even if the two chef special varieties—one filled with salmon, the other with crabcake—do not; they are bland and stodgy.
Another shareable appetizer is Odesa forshmak, minced herring mixed with chopped onions, grated apples and hard-boiled eggs and piled onto brown bread. Beef tartare misses the mark. The disk of hand-chopped beef filet lacks any seasoning and can’t be saved by the side of cold hollandaise sauce or the Parmesan shavings that top it. Deruny (potato pancakes), though, are delightful, loaded with onion flavor and served with sour cream and dreamy creamed sauteed mushrooms.
Diners in the D.C. area would be hard-pressed to find a better version than Ruta’s of holubtsi—fat cabbage rolls filled with ground beef and chicken, rice, carrots and onions and cooked in a tangy tomato sauce enriched with heavy cream. A vegetarian version loaded with mushrooms is just as good, if not better, the earthiness of the fungi imbuing the dish with umami. Mushrooms also star in lokshyna, long, flat egg noodles tossed with shiitake and button mushrooms sauteed with soy sauce, truffle oil, white wine and cream and topped with shaved Parmesan. Rounding out the meat options: beef stroganoff (a little stingy on the beef and served over a surfeit of kasha instead of noodles), fall-off-the-bone spareribs in barbecue sauce, and bigos, a stew of sauerkraut, Ukrainian kovbasa sausage and braised pork. Cod in white wine and cream sauce is the only fish entree and a plain-Jane one at that. A persistent issue is the food being served tepid rather than piping hot.
Ukrainian honey cake—thin, delicate layers of moist cake interspersed with cream cheese frosting and topped with honeycomb crunch—is the best dessert at Ruta. Falkov says they tried a hundred different recipes to get it right. Other winners are chunky apple strudel wrapped in an ultrathin, flaky crust and served with vanilla ice cream, and Kiev cake, layers of crispy meringue sandwiched with buttercream, covered with chocolate and dusted with ground mixed nuts.
Ruta is a charming place that does a good job of offering an underrepresented cuisine to diners in the Bethesda area. With some adjustments, it could do a great one.
Ruta Ukrainian Restaurant
4862 Cordell Ave., Bethesda, 240-316-1257, rutadc.us
FAVORITE DISHES: The Patriot cocktail (layers of blue curacao and yellow pineapple juice that represent the Ukrainian flag); holubtsi (stuffed beef cabbage); red borscht; sorrel-based green borscht; assorted varenyky (dumplings); chopped herring on black bread; Ukrainian honey cake
PRICES: Starters: $8 to $22; Entrees: $18 to $42; Desserts: $14 to $15
LIBATIONS: Ruta’s beverage list includes eight signature cocktails ($9 to $14) that highlight Ukrainian horilka (similar to vodka), brandy and honey liquor. Among the cocktails: Night on Ivana Kupala (horilka, triple sec, grapefruit juice), Drunk Cherry (horilka and preserved cherries) and Himars (brandy, peach schnapps, club soda). One of the four zero-proof offerings ($7 to $10) is kvass, a fermented rye drink. There are two draft beers ($5 and $11) and two Ukrainian bottled beers ($7 and $8).
The unremarkable nine-bottle wine list includes two sparkling, three white and four red ($28 to $36), all available by the glass ($10 to $13) but none from Ukraine. Co-owner Ruslan Falkov says he plans to add eight Ukrainian selections once the way has been cleared by Montgomery County’s Alcohol Beverage Services. Villa Tinta, Beykush and Stakhovsky wineries will be among those represented.
SERVICE: Attentive and knowledgeable
This appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
