The chef who champions Ukrainian culture through reconnecting with the land

Igor Mezencev and his team put on dinners in the forest outside Kyiv - to celebrate the natural bounty of the Ukrainian land. I got invited along.

In a forest, deep in the countryside a couple of hours outside Kyiv, a chef is basting long skewers of cherries with butter, as they roast on a large iron flatplate around a blazing fire. A pot of oil is bubbling, with round fritters made from cornmeal frying inside. He's keeping a sharp eye on the roasted peaches and plums, as another chef smashes aubergines flat in the flames, while in the embers, there's a kind of beef Wellington wrapped in foil. The air smells of smoke and damp pine. Even during war, Ukraine's chefs are determined to create something unique, and celebrate the bounty of their land.

The table is laid in the forest

When Russia's full scale invasion started - the chef Igor Mezencev was living in Kharkiv, in his high rise flat on the Saltivka estate, in the north east of the city. The part of the city closest to Russia, it was relentlessly bombarded: Mezencev managed to get his girlfriend out to safety abroad - but he stayed. The bombing was so intense that it was hard to get to the shops, so he cooked with whatever food he had left in the flat. Then the electricity was cut off, so he found an old camping stove, and came up with ways to use the contents of his rapidly defrosting freezer. In those dark, terrifying days, imagination was an escape: Mezencev started creating recipes, based on traditional Ukrainian dishes his grandmother had made. He had always seen food as part of Ukraine's rich cultural heritage and now, here was a way to protect it, to truly champion it in the face of Russian aggression. Before the war he'd set up Topot, encouraging young chefs to get properly immersed in the natural environment by taking them out to the forest to cook with whatever they could forage from the land.

Igor Mezencev preparing cherries

Now, it was Ukraine's precious culinary legacy which he wanted to preserve - with a new collaborative project called Victory Menu, encouraging other top chefs to contribute their own family recipies, repurposed as dishes which top restaurants could serve. The idea was to encourage places around the world to put them on the menu, raising awareness about Ukrainian food - as well as raising money to support local farmers whose livelihoods had been hit by the war.

More than a year later - Mezencev is heading up the kitchen at a five star hotel in Kyiv - and his Forest Dinners are back: he wants people once again to learn how to appreciate Ukraine's natural resources. And so we are here, at a kind of eco resort in the forest, where it is gently raining and there is the muffled sound of explosions somewhere nearby - "don't worry about those, they are ours". Mezencev proudly shows off his team "they are the best there is": beckoning over top food photographer Dima, Konstantin the forager and Dasha, who creates exciting pickles and ferments. Under the trees a table was being set up for dinner - but first we were led through the undergrowth by Konstantin, who had an astonishingly encyclopedic knowledge of edible herbs and plants. He plucked leaves and petals and dredged through the shallows of a small lake for tiny fronds - every so often warning "don't go anywhere near THESE". By the end, a couple of baskets were full of bits of foliage destined to be part of the dinner. Next, Dasha led a masterclass on pickling sunflowers, trimming them like artichokes: labour intensive, but delicious.

Konstantin foraging some herbs

And then the dinner itself: we sat around the carefully laid table, which was damp from the rain, but no one minded. The chefs ferried round plates of cured fish with some of the flowers and herbs which Konstantin had gathered, then came a dish reimagining stuffed peppers - those butter roasted cherries, with smashed aubergine and tomato and thin slices of roasted green peppers on top - smoky and delicious. Next, the gloriously crisp cornmeal fritters, with a kombucha juice drink on the side, before the pastry wrapped beef got sliced up for the main course - along with a vegetarian version for me. Dessert was a mix of roasted fruits with spiced cream and rose petal jam, scattered with some of Konstantin's flowers which tasted a little like tonka, a little like vanilla: the perfect end to this forest meal.

The delicious fruit dessert

It has been a horrendous time for Ukraine's farmers and producers - Russia's occupation has left vast swathes of agricultural land in ruins or heavily mined, while the attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam and then the deliberate targeting of grain supplies has wrought even more devastation. But Mezencev's aim is to promote the produce, the traditions and the land itself - like so much of Ukraine's culture, it is finally able to thrive again, freed from decades of Russian imperialism. And thanks to the creativity and hard work of chefs like him, the rest of the world will get to know about Ukrainian food - and celebrate it too.

With Igor and his team