First witch bar in Kyiv serves potions for all tastes

Witches are believed to gather at high bald hills at nighttime to cast spells and do the rituals. But Kyiv witches are cooler than that: They just got themselves a bar.

Lysa Hora, or literally “bald hill,” opened in April in the quiet part of the city center on Bulvarno-Kudriavska Street.

The spot that calls itself a witch bar has all attributes of a magic community. Its cocktail menu has “magic drinks” that help attract money, love, and health. There are brooms in the corner for the guests who dislike Uber. The entrance is guarded by a raven.

Lysa Hora was opened by three women with interest in magic – PR agent Olesya Ostafieva, 33, journalist Alla Kozakova, 31, and IT company vice president Nadiya Omelchenko, 39.

The bar became popular in an instance.

“We opened on a Tuesday, and on Sunday we had to refuse 62 people because the place was full,” recalls Ostafieva.

Magic rituals

The bar serves 34 alcohol cocktails. When making an order, one needs to pick a card from a deck offered by a waiter, where every card is a cocktail.
“We let the destiny choose the drink,” the bar co-owner Kozakova says with a smile.

Some of the drinks come with more rituals. For example, the Philosopher’s Stone cocktail is served with a small bag of enchanted salt which one has to scatter on their way from a bank to home in order to attract wealth.

Nine drinks on the menu are called mystical, because they help attract certain goods, like wealth or love, while 13 drinks are made with herbs according to old Ukrainian recipes, and four drinks are made using all four elements: fire, water, cinnamon which symbolizes earth, and smoke which stands for air.

Surprisingly enough, some cocktails come with a tittle of moral judgment.

“The Seven-Year Love cocktail will help a wife build a stronger relationship with her husband, yet it won’t be of any use for a mistress,” says Kozakova.

Lysa Hora works with an herbalist who collects herbs for the dishes and drinks in accordance with the moon calendar.

The coffee here is also said to be magical. Coffee with cardamom and pink salt is supposed to “open up hearts,” coffee with honey and pepper promises to attract love, and coffee with thyme and peppermint takes all the troubles away. The food on the menu is mostly Ukrainian traditional.

The three owners are proud with Lysa Hora and believe that it was their destiny to open the first witch bar in Kyiv.

Every day it hosts a special guest: a fortuneteller, a runologist, an herbalist, or a numerologist, who offer their services for additional pay. On Halloween, the bar will have a special entertainment show.

Lysa Hora Bar. 9A Bulvarno-Kudriavska St. Open Mon – Fri, 5 p.m. – 1 a.m., Sat – Sun, 11 a.m., – 1 a.m. Cocktails are Hr 120 on average.To book a table: +38095 8139 599