If you make your way to East Seventh Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square, you'll see East Village chiropractic and right beside it this blue Cyrillic sign.

Head down the stairs below it and you'll find handmade Ukrainian comfort food at this treasured hideaway called Stretch Up.

Meet the Chef.

My name is the Metro Kovalenko, and I ran kitchen.

It's stretcher.

Stretch is not your typical restaurant.

It opened 40 years ago to raise money for ST George Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Which is why do Metro or Dema calls it a church kitchen?

It's run entirely by volunteers who come to make pierogi by hand or in Ukrainian, we say Veronica.

Yeah, but in some part of Ukraine, they say pirogi.

So bosses right.

Dema starts by making the outer layer.

I'm making door think I'm using this roller to make circles on.

I put feeling on it.

Potato, onion, She's butter.

So black pepper e.

Guess that's it.

It's simple, but people say it's delicious.

It's beautiful.

E.

Tell you through the best Baranek I ever, ever.

That's about my grandchildren.

They never like.

Like what?

I made that at home.

He said No, they wanted from Lima.

That's Helen.

Like the rest of the women around this table.

She comes by once a week to help make Very Nikki.

That's old woman from the parish of the charge.

So, yeah, that's like a part of their social activities.

They like to make kind of the nation's off the charge.

So by helping here in in the structure Yeah, they do that 20 years.

I like working 20 years.

Yeah, I am a g e.

I like it because this nice quits.

Maybe.

Nice boss.

One steam is done cutting dough.

The woman helped pinch each dumpling closed is the same.

Like you have a boyfriend and squeeze you and kiss you pages thin.

They're boiled for five minutes and set beside a window to dry.

Uh, don't let them go.

They have tow package, Hiroki.

Usually we make like a 2000 off pierogi every Friday, and then they all gone by the next Wednesday.

Each plate it's served with caramelized onions and a large dollop of sour cream.

Super comfort food definitely gets its flavor from caramelized onions.

He was right so savory and soft and silky.

Maybe.

And we can say that about all Ukrainian food.

It's, ah, little bit like sweet and salty.

It's pleasure to eat but you know, needed even take, you know, the goal right south inside.

Very, very tasty.

Along with Ukrainian dumplings, Seema serves three other traditional dishes.

This is like four most famous Ukrainian dishes.

That's what people comes here for.

They always want to see those parochial bush stuffed cabbage.

If you do something else, they I'm gonna say you where is where the stuffed cabbage You're gonna hear it for sure.

Although the kitchen serves mostly churchgoers, it's open to the public to some come just for demons.

Daily specials like fish with mushrooms in a cream sauce.

It's like home cooked food.

Are you always get like the booth?

But then, once you started doing specials just every single day and it all costs no more than $8.

Eso Our price range is like from $4 for the bush of stuffed cabbage and $5.60 G's.

Okay, have a good day.

You hold him.

Demo left eastern Ukraine six years ago to escape the ongoing conflict there between Ukraine and pro Russian separatists.

Shortly after arriving in New York, he became a volunteer and head of the kitchen at ST Yah.

First, they didn't like me.

Yeah, well, that the new guy, he's younger, like we're here.

Like, you know what to do.

He do everything wrong.

And, uh, to be honest, I was doing a little bit wrong.

You know?

It took me time to get experience, to learn how to do it.

So they like it.

The door.

It was tough for them.

Make it softer.

Make it softer.

That's what I heard.

Yeah, and now, now they're my best friends.

Dean is one of many who have found a second home in this little Ukrainian island underground, which fits right in with what stretcher as a place was meant to be.

Teacher.

It's like an old fashioned Ukrainian work for meeting like a place.

But Charles, which is makes sense and somehow even thousands of miles from Ukraine deem is a little bit closer because of strata e.

I feel myself not being home, but I'm doing here something that gave me closer to home and that I told you that means a lot for me because I'm missing home so much mhm.