When my daughter Daniela returned from a work trip to Eastern Europe last summer, she raved about the kasha varnishkes at Kafe Jerusalem, a tiny Ashkenazic Jewish restaurant in Lviv, Ukraine. According to her, it was even better than mine.

I pride myself on my recipe, having learned it from my mother-in-law Paula, a kasha varnishkes maven who grew up not far from Lviv, so I found this news perturbing, to say the least.

A Hanukkah-Ready Recipe That Does Everything Right

Inspired by a Ukrainian cafe and a mother-in-law’s classic, this take on kasha varnishkes is rich with caramelized onions.

Recipe: Kasha Varnishkes (Buckwheat Groats, Noodles and Caramelized Onions)

Paula’s version was a simple yet ethereal mixture of caramelized onions; kasha, the hulled groats of buckwheat berries; and varnishkes, one of several Yiddish words for noodles. But often, the dish is bland, lacking in onions with buckwheat that’s too finely ground.

Curious to know what made Kafe Jerusalem’s kasha varnishkes so special, I contacted Marianna Dushar, a food anthropologist in Lviv who focuses on the food of Galicia, which covers parts of western Ukraine and southern Poland.“First and foremost, it’s all about the kasha,” Ms. Dushar wrote in an email, translating for the restaurant’s chef-owner, Lola Landa.