ISRAELI CHEFS ABROAD DISH IT OUT: 'THE REVERBERATIONS OF THE WAR ARE FELT'

Israeli Chefs Abroad Dish It Out: 'The Reverberations of the War Are Felt'

Just a year ago, Israeli cuisine was the talk of the international culinary scene. Since the start of the war in Gaza, however, even its Michelin Star-studded chefs have begun to conceal their identity

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For over a decade, "Israeli cuisine" was the hottest trend in the international restaurant scene. In 2022-2023, the number of Israeli chefs featured in the prestigious Michelin restaurant guides reached an all-time high. Hearing the voice of Israeli singer Omer Adam coming out of an eatery as one walked the streets of Amsterdam, New York or Madrid has become a fairly normal occurrence, and staff no longer had to explain to customers dishes such as burned eggplant on a bed of labneh, beetroot hummus with kubaneh or skewered cauliflower on lahoh.

This trend started to shift, however, even before the start of the war in Gaza, while us Israelis were still busy with the judicial overhaul. Israeli restaurants began to hide their identity. Some of them suddenly became "Tel Aviv-style" restaurants. Most were rebranded as "Middle Eastern."

Go look for any mention of the word "Israel" on the website of "Miznon London," and you will begin to understand the reality facing Israeli chefs working abroad. The Michelin website has an "Israeli restaurants" tag that lists 13 such restaurants. But if you go into their websites you will see that most of them, even those with Hebrew names, have removed any mention of their country of origin.

"There is no such thing anymore as 'Israeli cuisine'," says Chef Gome Galily. Since October 7, the man who in recent years opened restaurants from Russia through India to South America, and who regularly consults on culinary projects, has been left in despair. For years, Galily considered himself a culinary bridge between the Middle East and Far East, but future projects he planned for Dubai and Spain have been put on hold. "They simply disappeared," he says.

And he is not alone. Other Israeli chefs told Haaretz that projects with an Israeli or Jewish affiliation elsewhere in the world have been halted. Just a year ago, Haaretz's Hebrew language culture supplement pointed to Israeli cuisine as a unique source of pride for Israelis.

We set out to look into how Israeli chefs are coping in the post-October 7 world. Many declined to be interviewed, and they can be understood. Israeli restaurants, even those classified as "Middle Eastern," have become the target of demonstrations and vandalism. Last November, for example, a restaurant in Sydney was spray-painted with anti-Israeli slogans, shattering the idyllic Australian bubble.

The restaurant's chef and owner withdrew his decision to be interviewed for this article. Others, who had agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, say that "even if a restaurant isn't a political place, the reverberations of the war are felt." Others, meanwhile, signaled business as usual, which is easier when your restaurant is no longer defined as "Israeli."

First stop: Malmö

The Eurovision song contest never interested Chef Matan Levy, but the announcement that Malmö, his home for the past 13 years, would be the competition's next host city, came just in time. After two years, he decided to turn his place, Two Forks Hummus Shop, into a chef restaurant in the evenings. It received excellent reviews and the clientele responded accordingly. Then October 7 hit.

"I try to avoid interviews, because of the Eurovision chaos," he says. "We're situated only a few meters from the venues, like neighbors, so I try not to create a link between my restaurant and everything that's happening in Israel. I have a wholly-Swedish team and I have to protect them."

What persuaded him to speak? Actually, it was a desire to present the city of Malmö as it was before the war. Before leaving Israel in 2007, Levy grew up on a moshav in the Jezreel Valley. After his military service, he decided to learn cooking in Vermont. During a residency in South America, he met Charlotte, a Swedish girl, who would become his wife.

He found Malmö to be a dizzying concentration of cultures from 180 places across the world. Five years ago, the couple decided to stop working for other restaurants and opened a pop-up serving hummus that was slightly different from the kind that was available in the city until then, which they describe as "a sticky vegan supplement to the falafel."

The successful pop-up led to the opening of a lunch restaurant, which, alongside hummus, offered vegetables that his wife grew on a nearby farm. "I'm Israeli, but it isn't an Israeli restaurant," he says.

Why is that so important for you to emphasize?

"Politics. If I were to say that we're an Israeli restaurant, especially in the current climate, that's a very strong declaration that would not go down pleasantly or silently here. Since the opening, we've called it a Levantine restaurant. In the end, we come to feed and rejoice and we want to earn a living. We're not interested in entering a boiling cauldron that no one comes out well from."

"I don't hide that I'm Israeli and my culinary influence is Israeli cuisine, but I also don't announce it. Recently, we haven't even said that we were Levantine, because that too is loaded. I classify us as a chef restaurant that serves hummus as a basis, and no Palestinian customer has asked me 'who allowed you to touch hummus.'"

Is it only since October 7?

"No, since we opened. Even then, I asked the wine suppliers if it was possible to add Israeli wine, and they all said no. Israeli wine is wonderful, but it can't be sold here, because Malmö is a city with a strong political consciousness. It might be possible in Stockholm, because there are hummus stalls and an Israeli grocery and a large Israeli community, but the Jewish community in Malmö is very small. So it's complicated. It's no secret that Malmö is considered the most antisemitic city in the world."

Do you feel it in daily life?

"Sure, a lot more in the past six months, but we felt it even before. My son is the only Jew in school, and even before the war, all kinds of things were yelled at him and there was harassment."

The moment he learned about the Hamas attack on October 7, Levy rushed to the restaurant. "I called the kitchen staff and asked them to lock the doors. When I arrived, I sent everyone home. I was afraid something might happen. I never concealed where I came from, and it's not hard to connect hummus and Israel," he says. "I feared, and I fear now, that someone would get a crazy idea and one of my employees would get hurt. My guys are young Swedes, 99 percent of what they know comes from TikTok, but they do wonderful work. Anyone who wants to ask, asks, but we try to separate politics and the restaurant."

Nonetheless, politics in Malmö haven't stopped percolating. "The first days of the war were very hard. There were marches, drumming, horns. It scared me. I set up a group of 50 Israelis. We're in daily contact, meet, and try to support each other. Even though I haven't been in Israel for many years, I suddenly felt it hard to be far from it. As the Eurovision approaches, you feel the tension more."

Have you thought of leaving Malmö?

"I never thought of returning to Israel. Now, for the first time, I've thought about it, but it's a fantasy. I love this city. There's no place like it. Every nation on earth is represented here. It's not a cold and alienated Swedish city, but a warm and wonderful city of workers. The direction it's headed to pains me. I think that we have yet reached the nadir, the bottom of the pit."

"In limited circles, we seriously ask, 'Are we again in 1939?' Recently, someone said that if there is something that Malmö's Jews knew how to do well before was to hide. 80 years later, that's still relevant for us."

Second stop: London

Last June, when Chef Aviv Baum and restauranteur Neta Segev opened the Mazal restaurant in the new wing of London's Camden Market, no one prepared them that, four months later, it would fall victim to a hate crime, and enter the undesirable list of the "50 Israeli restaurants in London to boycott" and receive violent social media comments like, "You stole land and now our hummus."

Everything began two years ago, when Baum and Segev were wandering in the market seeking something to remind them of home. Having found nothing that satisfied them, they began holding events offering shawarma in pita bread at Jewish delis throughout the city. Success soon followed, and Israelis from across the kingdom started to arrive. When the British saw the long queue, they joined it. The decision to open an Israeli street food restaurant, where kosher-keeping Jews and halal-keeping Muslims could sit together, was the natural next step.

"We wanted to serve anyone who was looking for food that reminded them of home," says Segev. "We called it Mediterranean food, we also appealed to Muslims, but when you enter the place it's obvious that this is an Israeli joint," he says, as a popular Israeli song plays in the background.

What started as a shawarma stall soon expanded into a Middle Eastern style grill restaurant. The media praised it, the Jewish community embraced it, and the sign "Halal" brought in Muslims. "We were loved from every side, but then October 7 came, and customers went from 500 a day to zero," says Segev.

After Israel's airspace was closed, he says "all the Israeli tourists whom we counted on stopped coming, and Jews didn't want to go to places identified with Israel, because of fear of attacks and harassment. On October 8, we opened as usual, but we didn't realize the situation. We believed that we were a lighthouse of co-existence. We had plenty of Muslim customers with hijabs sitting next to kippah-wearers with no problem. We have a staff comprising Israelis and Algerian Muslims."

Two weeks after the outbreak of the war, the restaurant was burgled, the refrigerators opened, and the invaders threw food everywhere and urinated on it. "It was a catastrophe," Segev recounts. "The police opened an investigation and found that they were two British Muslims who worked in the market and arrested them. They admitted that the vandalism was because we were Israelis. We tried to treat it like a small thing, but it was upsetting and scary."

"I came to be a restauranteur, not to be a hero," he adds. "I have young children. We began to place a guard at the entrance and put a knife in the hostess stand. Do you realize that we put a guard in the restaurant with a knife at the entrance stand?"

Most of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators were blocked at the entrance to the market, but a few infiltrated inside and initiated provocations. They yelled at Muslim employees, "How can you work with Jews? Aren't you ashamed?" Muslim diners who came because of the Halal sign left the moment they realized that the owners were Israelis, and Muslim food delivery-app messengers refused to take orders. Phone calls full of curses and abuse became the norm.

Since the war, Israeli and Jewish restauranteurs in London have organized a special forum. "Everyone reports being targeted. Some restaurants have been spray-painted and had their windows smashed, but most of the harassment came through the orders system, with bookings filling up the place and then no one comes," says Segev.

"The situation is now a bit calmer. We've returned to 60 percent occupancy. There is no existential threat, but to say that you wave your Israeli-ness in London now? Not so much. They've undermined us, we're always on alert. At the moment, I feel safe, but I don't feel like myself."

How has this affected future plans?

"Of course. We were supposed to open another restaurant in the area of the London Stock Exchange, and we wonder if that is the right thing to do. Every time you think it's over, there's another blow. Every canceled flight from Tel Aviv to London affects us."

Nonetheless, there is one point of light: Israeli Arabs who live in London have begun going to the restaurant in recent weeks. "You see them enter fearfully and you're a little tense, and then we start to speak in Hebrew and they love the atmosphere and enjoy themselves. They're looking for food that reminds them of home."

Third stop: Paris

Noa and Liran Tal were all set to be at the top of their game. Shortly after opening, they found their chef restaurant, Alluma, being recommended in the Michelin guide. Soon after, it was selected by the prestigious tourism and restaurant magazine, Condé Nast Traveller, as one of the top new restaurants in the world. Connoisseur tourists began to frequent the place, enjoying the tasty meals of mussels with kugel in harira sauce or lychee skewers on lahoh bread. But with the start of the war and the huge demonstrations in Paris, things suddenly slowed down.

"There has been a decline in business since October. Many factors are affecting this, but October and November were difficult months," says Noa. "The Gaza War has affected the French, like at the start of the Russia-Ukraine War, as does the current recession in France. We're anxiously anticipating the Olympic Games."

"The war was felt, at least in the first few months," says Liran. "Israeli-owned businesses or those identified with the Jewish community were hit more. Some of our customers are Jewish or Israeli tourists, and when there are fewer, that affects us."

How is life now, as Israelis in Paris?

"Since I got my first notification push on that Saturday [on October 7], it's gone from one extreme to the other. In the first few days, I was in no mood for people to come. I couldn't cook, but it was clear that I couldn't close the restaurant."

"On the one hand, we're a small family restaurant. It's our livelihood and we felt that we must continue the business. On the other hand, my people had suffered a serious shock and the last thing I felt like doing was to feed people. At first, guests who came saw that we were Israelis and told us, 'We share your pain.' But after Israel entered Gaza that was replaced by a sense of defensiveness. Then the attacks on social media began, with trolls responding with violence to our posts. We quickly realized that what you hear about Paris in Israel is different from the daily reality here."

And what is their reality like? Every day, when the couple opens the restaurant doors, they see opposite them a Palestinian flag that was hung at the outbreak of the war. For their part, they do not intend to hang an Israeli flag. "That really isn't us or our style and the restaurant has nothing that says 'Israel'," says Liran.

"The restaurant is near the demonstrations and we don't want to antagonize. We're always asked if we are frightened in Paris or if there is antisemitism. Most people don't experience these things in daily life. We haven't stopped talking Hebrew on the street and we've never felt the need to hide," he adds.

"When the war broke out, there were threats to attack Jewish targets in the world. There were restaurants in Paris which hired guards, and one evening, we decided to close, because we were really scared," he says. "We couldn't work. We only opened because we had no choice. We're a small business, not a financial investment group with backing, just a couple with two children and a restaurant. We don't have the privilege of disconnecting and not working."

Alluma is listed in the Michelin guide under the header "Israeli cuisine," but except for the name of the restaurant and its owners, there are no other details to give this away. "We make Mediterranean cuisine with a touch of Israeli orientalism, but it's not food that is totally Israeli," says Liran.

"We intentionally didn't define ourselves as an Israeli restaurant. Not for security reasons, but actually for culinary ones. We didn't want to be jumped on and accused of appropriation, and most people, when you talk with them about food and Israel, think directly of pita and hummus. We are far from that. Arab and Israeli cuisines share a common core, which chefs are scared of. If I could sign a joint venture with an Arab chef now, I'd jump at it, but I know that that will be difficult in the near future."

What do they foresee for the "Israeli cuisine" brand now? They note that the brand's success has been good for Arab restaurants as well. "It opened a door for a lot of Arab restaurants, which are suddenly included under the header 'Mediterranean,' causing them to strive to be better, requiring them to develop in the field of hosting and catering. Today, you will see many more restaurants with modern Arab cuisine."

Last stop: New York

Since the outbreak of the war, barely a week has gone by in which an "Israeli" restaurant in New York, or one whose managers have expressed support for Israel, hasn't been defaced with hostile graffiti or suffered arson attempts.

At the outbreak of the war, pro-Palestinian activists have examined the national roots of restaurants in the city and those found to be Jewish or Israeli-owned have been put on a blacklist. That isn't a metaphor: a document has been distributed on social media naming 57 "Zionist" restaurants with calls to boycott them or demonstrate in front of them. Chef Einat Admony's Balaboosta and Taïm restaurants were included in the list.

"When I read the list, I laughed. Here is another bored white man who found a conscience and decided to do something," says the woman who is one of the pioneers of the new Israeli cuisine in New York. "It's not The New York Times calling to boycott me. I wasn't bothered, I wasn't disappointed. On the contrary."

In fact, she argues, the document's distributors achieved the opposite result of what they hoped for. "I knew that the restaurant would be thronged, because the Jewish-Israeli community knows how to deal with this. Customers we hadn't seen in years suddenly came. The Israeli restaurants filled up again. Today, the restaurant sees more Israeli and Jewish customers than ever before."

Since the war, Admony has felt more Israeli than ever. "I don't hide behind 'Middle Eastern' or 'Levantine'. I am an Israeli chef who wears a pin and a dog-tag [advocating for the hostages' return] and goes to demonstrations," she says. Admony uploaded to social media images with identifiable Israeli symbols, resulting in her being targeted and threatened. "I feel that I've come out of the closet. I'm really not afraid," she says.

At some point, she was forced to tone down the videos she uploaded, not out of fear or being threatened, but because of concern for her employees. "My employees, none of whom are Jews or Israelis, were frightened. I realized that the videos stressed them a little. There are employees who have been with me for years. They were afraid that the restaurant would be attacked, and asked me to tone it down."

That is also why she hasn't hung an Israeli flag outside the restaurant. "Hanging up a flag is not supporting Israel, It's looking for trouble and attracting attention that I don't need at the moment. Those who track me know my opinions and positions. I haven't moved an inch. But I have responsibility for my employees, and they shouldn't be caught up in a dispute that is not theirs because of the chef and owner."

Admony says that the anti-Israel extremism began before October 7. "It started small, and has now exploded. New York swings between extremes on many issues, from Trump to gender. Israel-Palestine is part of that. Add to that a lot of bored kids who live on TikTok. They no longer read The New York Times and understand complexities," she says.

Her great disappointment isn't from the demonstrators or social media, nor from BDS-supporting Jewish restauranteurs who have signed petitions against Israel (and have subsequently been boycotted themselves), but actually from her colleagues. Famous chefs whom she has worked with and hosted at home and at the restaurant have vanished since October. "I didn't seek support or for them to take a step, just one phone call to ask how I'm doing. In my naiveté, I thought, 'Wow, this thing has happened, now the world will understand and support and be there. But no. Not even a phone call. I wised up from that too."

Although Balaboosta declares itself an Israeli restaurant, Admony doesn't judge restauranteurs and chefs who have decided to redefine their cuisine from Israeli to Mediterranean. "In the end, a restaurant is a business and people have to protect their workplace and employees. I once thought, what is the problem in saying that I am an Israeli restaurant? But, today, everyone is afraid."

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