Gas Lamp, or Gasova Lampa, is a restaurant in Lviv, Ukraine, and it is really cool! It is, as the name suggests, a place filled with gas lamps, 528 pieces to be exact – apparently the second largest collection in Europe. Considering the gas lamp was invented by two local pharmacists, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find something referring to the creation, but a spot like this is not exactly a given either. The restaurant is spread out over several floors. You enter a dark first floor, giving off an underground laboratory experiment like vibe. From there you climb narrow staircases, and move through floors with different kinds of settings. Getting brighter for each floor, ending up at a glass-walled top floor, and, I assume, great views of the city. Not being too keen on sitting in the darker corners, and the prime space looking full, I had lunch on the least exciting third floor 🙂 For my midday meal, I went with a dish described as pie with grated potatoes, chicken, and mushroom. A more precise translation would have been potato pancake… And it did turn out to be deruny, just a thinner version of it. When my brain had reset, from pie to pancake, I did enjoy the Ukrainian fare. To accompany the food I chose what was called dried fruit drink/lemonade on the menu. It tasted like black currants, and it was luke warm. Not my favourite. If you’re in the adventurous mood, you can go for their Chemical Experiment, which is described as “infusions served in test tubes”, or the more familiar sounding, alcohol infused jellies. As a last twist, when you leave, you exit through a merchandise shop, for a lack of a better description. Offering all kinds of souvenirs, in the same laboratory style, mixed in between them, alive spiders and scorpions. If you don’t feel like hanging out with the creepy crawlies, gas lamps can be bought in the restaurant too.
Website: fest.lviv.ua/en/restaurants/gasovalampa
