Rosé Gosé Brings Continental Flair to Austin

Poke bowl with salmon (Photos by John Anderson)

Tucked away along the concrete sprawl of Airport Boulevard on the east side of North Loop's 52nd Street, Rosé Gosé melds its owners' neo-bohemian Euro vibes with the culture of the live music capital where they now reside. "When I was young, I saw the movie Home Alone. There's a scene where he is eating pizza, eating ice cream, [he's] using credit cards … I thought to myself, this is America? What is this?" owner Veronika Hurynava laughs as she reminisces with her husband, Igor Drypsiak.

The couple moved here a year ago from Belarus, an Eastern European country bordered by Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. This is the second location of Rosé Gosé; the original location still operates in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

"A lot of American people don't travel to Europe so we would like to show them European food, atmosphere, and cocktails," says Hurynava. The beef tartare with truffle mousse, eggplant with Greek yogurt and chimichurri, and mushroom risotto with garlic sauce (a recent special) all highlight the owners' European origins. The pavlova with sorbet – a dessert that originated in Australia/New Zealand that has become popular worldwide – is light and flavorful, with fruit slices to accentuate the pastry and cream.

Although Rosé Gosé began in Belarus as a way for wine-drinking women and beer-swilling men to mingle and relax together, Hurynava stresses that they consider it important to weave the fabric of their new hometown into the Texas outpost's menu. The Minsk location had an Asian fusion twist with oolong tea, kimchi olives, and seafood poke bowls but they have now added a margarita to the cocktail menu along with some classic American and Tex-Mex staples to appeal to the Austin crowd.

"We decided to add burgers, pork ribs, and steak because this is Texas. We couldn't just make these [European] dishes," she says.

Igor Drypsiak owns Rosé Gosé with his wife, Veronika Hurynava

Hurynava handles a majority of the administrative duties in the restaurant and curates the general vibe and aesthetic, while her affable husband helms the bar and makes many of the various cocktails on the house drink list, such as his favorite, the No. 8 (a tasty gin, yuzu, and melon creation), and the No. 10 (their take on the traditional Texas staple, the margarita).

The couple shares an eye for what makes a place Instagrammable, be it the dried flowers on the bar handpicked by Hurynava herself or the ornate bathtub filled with wine bottles on the patio.

Rosé Gosé Austin's chef, Konstantin Sychev, previously worked at Michelin-starred restaurants along with a stint at CoCoCo, a renowned European bistro in St. Petersburg, Russia. Hurynava raves about him, while also acknowledging the challenges that he and ownership face. "The restaurant business is very difficult. You need to work every day. And I adore my work. I couldn't, like, be near a pool. I don't like to spend time near a pool. I like work. I moved to [the] USA because I wanted to develop. Develop my English, my brain, and skills. It was very important to me," she says.

Drypsiak adds, "In this country, you can do it. America is a great country. It's a lot of people and different people. We can open one, two, then 100 restaurants. In our country, when you open three to five, you have [a] problem."

He speaks from personal experience. "In our country, it is a very difficult political situation. Ukraine has war and our president supports Putin," Drypsiak says. His wife chimes in, "When the war started with Russia and Ukraine, we support [the] Ukrainians. And [in] my country, the people there all support Ukraine. We hate our president and hate this war."

Drypsiak says, "When we lived in Belarus, we had five restaurants. We wanted to show our people and our government that we didn't support [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko or our government. He has been president for almost 30 years.

"When our country had a big strike, a lot of businesses and companies decided to close for one day."

Cocktails No. 3 and No. 8 are among Rosé Gosé's most popular drinks

On October 26, 2020, more than 100,000 people marched in Minsk in opposition to Lukashenko's election victory amid allegations of vote-rigging, with hundreds tortured and thousands detained. "The next day, we understood that we didn't have [any] more restaurants," says Drypsiak.

(Before the protest, the couple owned five restaurants; they later reopened three of them, including the original Rosé Gosé.)

"In 2020, we decided to move," he continues. "We would like [a] new president, new modern country. We decided we need to move because we have a small daughter, and we don't want her to live [in a situation] like North Korea because North Korea felt like it is a similar situation to Belarus. Getting worse and worse every day."

When they moved to Austin in 2022, they began by working in a food truck. While there, they started doing their homework about where they could start a new restaurant. "We went to [the owners of] Russian House and wanted to know about their grease trap. I called about the device because I knew it was really expensive … We understood that we needed a lot of money [for a new build-out]," Hurynava says.

After meeting the owners of the Russian House, she stayed in contact with them. When ATX Grill RH (the spiritual successor to Russian House from the same ownership) closed shortly after moving to Airport Boulevard, they called Hurynava to ask if she and her husband were interested in setting up shop there. She was introduced to Teresa Wilson, who owns the building that housed her erstwhile restaurant, Sala & Betty. Hurynava told Wilson about their European bistro concept and their decades of experience in the restaurant business. Wilson was all for it and Hurynava leans on her often for advice as they continue to refine the menu.

Hurynava and Drypsiak rave about Austin, saying the people here are more polite and welcoming than in Brooklyn (where they lived for a month before moving to Austin), but at the same time, the couple recognizes that they come as outsiders. "In Belarus, it was more simple because I know and I feel my people and my culture," says Hurynava. "For me, when I start to understand everything about your nation, it will be perfect for me. And then I can grow and improve my business, my sphere, and improve my languages."

Rosé Gosé