Don’t try to hide, stand for it! That is the unspoken slogan of a restaurant in Southern Ukraine. A place in a city that has seen seafarers flogging in during the summer, and nobody, well few people during the winter month. This place, called Odessa, with a restaurant by the unimaginable name “Steakhouse” has taken customer awareness to a different level. The place is an abode of guilt with aged beef hanging in temperature-controlled units at the entrance and chefs dealing with meat that is grilled from bloody all the way to medium. The oak wooden interior with the cracking floor and the abundance of knives, axes and other killing equipment on the wall shows that you have arrived, at the slaughterhouse.

Are you waiting for the butcher to show up?

The restaurateur does understand his clientele though. The almost equally distributed male / female guest ratio is met with an equally warm, sleek and hospitable male / female staff. The uniforms are elegant but not overly dressy, and the engagement makes your heard get warm — the opposite of what you expect when entering.

The food is exactly what you would wish for if you are a meat, steak or grilled foody lover. What you see in the show kitchen, the glass fridges and on the pictures is precisely what you get. And that in excellent quality with sides that range from crunchy vegi to potatoes in all sizes and shapes.

You thought that the guilt was over once you sat down? The final touch in this place is when you get the bill. A photographic composition of what you have just now indulged! And it is done in a way that you either love it or you hate it. An affluent woman making up her hair with a rib, a virtuoso playing on cow carcasses, a grandmum with an axt in the goat, trying to make sweater out of the fur… we have found a selection of seven images, many to harsh for our taste.  

Either way, the place is crazy successful, and customers are aware of their guilty pleasure. The questions remain, maybe one should stand for what the product really is and not faking it? How far can you go?