Mariupol refugees open first Ukrainian cuisine restaurant in Los Angeles

A family of refugees from war-battered Mariupol opened the first Ukrainian cuisine restaurant in US's Los Angeles, Voice of America reports.

The "Mom, Please" restaurant offers numerous traditional dishes.

The restaurant's menu includes Ukrainian syrnyky (cottage cheesecakes), mlyntsi (pancakes), dumplings, pizza, and various coffee brews. All recipes were taken from the notes of Olena's mother-in-law, the founder of the place.

Soon after the invasion, she and her family moved to the US.

At first, we started making frozen food, and everyone liked them very much, and we found that there was such a demand that people wanted to come to a Ukrainian restaurant, says Inna Kochetkova, co-owner of the restaurant.

Olena and her husband worked as cooks in Mariupol before the city was sieged in March 2022. A shell right in the kitchen killed her husband.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, more than 82,000 Ukrainians and their families have entered the US through the "United for Ukraine" program.

The US Department of Homeland Security has extended temporary protection status for Ukrainian citizens until April 19, 2025.

Andrii Sarvira, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, launched a restaurant with a brewery after his service. With the start of the full-scale invasion, the former paratrooper's establishment turned into a volunteer hub, and today, First Wave provides jobs for displaced people from Mariupol.