About ZIMA

We opened in 2016 in a townhouse in Soho, and we have been cooking the food of Central and Eastern Europe here ever since.

Soho · since 2016

We opened in 2016 in a townhouse in Soho, and we have been cooking the food of Central and Eastern Europe here ever since.

Many of our dishes began with recipes passed down through the families of our team, bringing to London the flavours and feeling of the food we grew up with. Over the years, those recipes have been adapted by the different chefs who have worked in our kitchen, but the idea at their heart has remained the same: food that feels generous, familiar and homemade.

We place great importance on good-quality, local ingredients, alongside produce imported from across the region when authenticity truly calls for it. For ten years, we have been feeding London from our home on Frith Street, and the food, atmosphere and sense of hospitality we started with remain at the heart of ZIMA today.

Our team

Our team is one of the things we are most proud of. More than ten nationalities are represented across ZIMA, from Moldova and Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan and beyond, bringing their own experiences, traditions and understanding of food to the restaurant.

Our kitchen is headed by Jurate Volodzko, who grew up in Lithuania and continues to draw on the recipes and flavours of her family in our Soho kitchen. Our menu travels across Central and Eastern Europe, bringing together dishes from different countries and traditions while celebrating just how varied the food of the region can be.

When ZIMA opened, Alexei Zimin was the person at the heart of our kitchen and the philosophy behind it. More than a chef, he was a food writer and journalist who believed deeply that Eastern European cuisine deserved as much of a place in London’s food culture as French or Italian cooking. He spent much of his career sharing that belief with the world.

Alexei passed away in 2024, but his influence remains everywhere at ZIMA, from the way we approach a plate of food to the spirit of the restaurant itself. His philosophy continues to guide what we do, and he is greatly missed here.

A seasonal ZIMA table - dumplings, zakuski and medovik

Four menus a year

Each season, our chefs create a new menu. We keep the dishes our regulars love, while much of the rest changes according to what is at its best: fresh herbs in spring, berries and soft fruit in summer, wild mushrooms and game in autumn, then preserves and ferments through winter, following traditions that have existed across the region for centuries.

Sometimes we go looking for old recipes that have largely been forgotten, simply to see whether they deserve another life. Others never leave us. Our pelmeni, borscht and a handful of ZIMA classics have earned a permanent place on the menu.

Downstairs and events

The bar and karaoke downstairs have become just as much a part of ZIMA as the restaurant above.

Over the years, our townhouse has hosted book launches, wine tastings, exhibitions, charity dinners, birthdays and private celebrations, as well as writers, musicians, filmmakers and chefs passing through London. From chef’s tables with Michelin-starred chefs to weddings, our walls have seen quite a lot.

Giving something back

When war broke out in Ukraine, we committed to donating ten percent of our income to the British Red Cross for humanitarian relief, ultimately raising more than £27,000. We remain enormously grateful to the guests who supported both us and our team during that period.

Since then, we have continued to organise charity dinners and support fundraising events for people in Ukraine and those displaced by the war. It is something that remains important to us today.

Since opening ZIMA, we have also worked closely with Gift of Life, a charity helping children with cancer across Central and Eastern Europe access the treatment and care they need.

Still going

Ten years on, ZIMA is still changing. Every season brings a new menu, new dishes and a slightly different energy to the restaurant, while the things that matter most to us have stayed much the same.

We remain committed to the standards and ideas we started with in 2016, while leaving room for new people, new influences, events and ideas to become part of the story. It is what keeps ZIMA moving forward, and what keeps guests coming back to our townhouse in Soho.