Eugene Korolev, a chef from Dnipro, Ukraine, opened his first restaurant just three months before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. When war broke out, he joined the Ukrainian army, leaving his team to run the restaurant and cook for hospitals and the national guard.
Korolev served in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, where he used his culinary skills to advise army cooks and forage for ingredients like anchovies, wine, rosemary, and sorrel in abandoned houses. He said cooking together became an important part of daily life in his unit.
In late 2023, he met Polina Sychova, who was planning a Ukrainian restaurant in London. With encouragement from his unit, Korolev left the army and opened Sino in London in May 2024, with an almost entirely Ukrainian kitchen team.
He now works with Ukraine's embassy and foreign ministry to promote Ukrainian food culture internationally. Korolev said his time in the army taught him discipline and perspective: 'It's not a problem if we are running out of walnuts, or if we break one of the expensive plates – in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter.'
