Serving taste of home in Adelaide’s Faino after fleeing war
After escaping missiles in war-torn Ukraine, one couple is serving a UNESCO-listed soup in their new home. The number of Ukrainians seeking peace in SA now reaching around 350.
Yuliya and Volodymyr Klymenko are serving up traditional Ukrainian dishes to locals in a new Adelaide eatery after fleeing their homeland when Russia brutally launched an attack on their Eastern European country in 2022.
Today, the couple is also hosting a special event at their cafe and restaurant Faino to mark the hardships experienced by displaced Ukrainians and “their determination to contribute to their adopted home”.
Watching her friends and family die on the battlefield has left psychological scars for Yuliya and other Ukrainians.
“When you lose your friends, the people you knew in your younger age, it obviously affects everything, and in general, life has changed,” she said.
“Life still goes on, but it’s a bit different. People start to appreciate everyday life because they never know what’s going to be tomorrow or in a minute.”
Around 350 Ukrainians have sought shelter in South Australia since the war began, according to the Association of Ukrainians in SA.
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“The story of Yuliya and Volodymyr is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when people who have endured the upheaval of war are given the opportunity to rebuild their lives,” Ukrainian Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry SA president Alexander Podoroshko said.
“They have not only established a new business but are sharing their culture and traditions with the wider South Australian community.”
Yuliya initially moved to Adelaide with her two children – 14-year-old Luka and 10-year-old Tereza – shortly after the war began and stayed with an Australian host family, before being joined by her husband six months later.
Four years on, Yuliya and Volodymyr opened Faino in July this year, the name meaning “done just right” in Ukranian and with some 90 per cent of its menu listing Ukrainian food.
The Pulteney Street spot serves everything from crêpes with bolognese or chicken and mushrooms in a cheesy sauce to dumplings filled with potato or stewed sauerkraut and mushrooms.
Yuliya says one of the most popular dishes is borscht, a beetroot soup that is recognised by UNESCO on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
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“The main idea was to share Ukrainian food with people because it’s not as common, and we thought that it’s going to be nice to share, basically, the culture, because I think the first way you can experience any culture is through the food,” Yuliya, 39, said.
She tells of having lived among the cobbled stones and gothic churches of Lviv, where she worked as an interior designer, while her 37-year-old husband Volodymyr was in the tourism industry.
Yuliya describes the city of around 700,000 people as “one of the safest cities” in Ukraine when the war started in 2022 but she still feared Russian soldiers could arrive at their doorstep at any moment.
“The western part is the closest to Poland, so it’s basically one of the safest cities, I would say from the perspective of the missiles because it takes a lot longer for them to fire,” she said.
“But it was just five hours to get from my city to Kyiv, so that’s why in the first month when they (the Russians) got to Bucha, it’s not far from Kyiv, and we thought, you can fall asleep, and in five hours, soldiers can be in your house.”
Yuliya says she particularly misses Lviv around Christmas time when she would normally catch up with family.
“Especially in these kinds of moments, you miss your family, your relatives, but of course, Australia became our home and really nicely welcomed us. So, we’re happy here and now have two homes,” she said.
The 2021 national Census recorded 865 people Ukrainian-born South Australians, while 5,643 South Australians had Ukrainian heritage.
A state government spokesperson confirmed that the South Australian government committed $50,000 in 2026-27 towards the Association of Ukrainians in South Australia’s Support of Displaced Persons Project, as well as $125,000 in 2027-28 for the National Ukrainian Festival 2027.
In addition, the state government invested $175,000 in 2021-22, 2022-23, 2024-25 and 2025-26 for the Association of Ukrainians in South Australia’s Community Support Programme.
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