Within the walls of Alyonka, Elena DeYoung’s stories come to life. “Your walls can heal you,” she said. “It was something my mother would say.” And here—in her space—is her passion, dedication, and her unending love for food, cooking, and family. There is no denying that it feels like home, a concept that goes beyond physical space.
When DeYoung’s father passed away, she lived with her grandparents in Kazakhstan and learned to appreciate the art of food and how it can bring comfort and peace in challenging times. Her grandparents had a huge garden, but nothing grows all year, especially in the frigid cold of a Russian winter—where the Arctic air can easily drop temperatures into the negatives for weeks on end. So, DeYoung learned to preserve, harvesting springtime berries and fermenting vegetables to be enjoyed throughout the year. “It was also there that I learned to cook really good meats and other dishes,” she said.
She moved to the United States in the early ‘90s with her small daughter and spent two years in New York before traveling west to Portland. It was there that DeYoung—ever the hard worker—started her first business as the owner of a town car company. “I’ve always just followed my curiosity. And in 2019, my curiosity brought me here,” she said, gesturing. She was, at the time, a preschool teacher at Challenger School, a job she loved very much—but after more than decade of helping to orchestrate the Russian Food Festival, the draw to entrepreneurship struck again. “People would often ask me when I was going to open a restaurant because they wanted to eat this food more than just one day a year,” she said.
Opening a restaurant has its share of challenges, but for DeYoung, the biggest challenge has been balancing her ceaseless drive to work long, hard hours to accomplish her dreams while finding time to be present for her family and growing children. “I’ve needed to learn to step back and appreciate where I am, which is truly living my dream,” she said.
Dining at Alyonka is an experience unmatched by other restaurants. Dedication is evident in every artfully crafted bite of Pelmeni—handmade Russian style dumplings—and in the deep-fried Chebureki. Whether it’s a soul-warming bowl of Borscht or a slow cooked Pork Loin Roast, every dish feels like coming home. Even Guy Fieri, renowned restaurateur and traveling food-focused celebrity, agrees. Fieri visited Alyonka two years ago and could not get enough of their Lamb Plof, which you can see on Season 45, Episode 12 of “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.”DeYoung keeps a worn cookbook at Alyonka, which she flips through with a smile. Passed down from her mother, the cover reads книга о вкусной и здоровойе, which translates to The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food. From learning to cook as a young girl to making meals for the Treasure Valley, DeYoung’s heart and soul can be felt in the walls of her restaurant and in every delicious bite at Alyonka Russian Cuisine.
