Zachary Engel brings modern Israeli cooking to Chicago via Zahay and Shaya.
While it took me almost six months to get to it, Chicago stubbornly avoided the modern Israeli cuisine movement in the United States for more than a decade after its primary domestic proponent, Michael Solomonov, opened Zahav in Philadelphia in 2008. Well, OK, Lettuce Entertain You dipped its toe in the hummus a few years ago with Ema and its brother, Aba, but not atypically, those were relatively restrained expressions of the vibrant syncretic collection of diverse traditions that are continuing to define the idea of modern Israeli cuisine, a still uncategorizable alloy of Middle Eastern traditions with those of the broader worldwide Jewish diaspora popularly brought to the rest of the world's attention by English-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi in the early part of the century.…
Zachary Engel brings modern Israeli cooking to Chicago via Zahay and Shaya.
While it took me almost six months to get to it, Chicago stubbornly avoided the modern Israeli cuisine movement in the United States for more than a decade after its primary domestic proponent, Michael Solomonov, opened Zahav in Philadelphia in 2008. Well, OK, Lettuce Entertain You dipped its toe in the hummus a few years ago with Ema and its brother, Aba, but not atypically, those were relatively restrained expressions of the vibrant syncretic collection of diverse traditions that are continuing to define the idea of modern Israeli cuisine, a still uncategorizable alloy of Middle Eastern traditions with those of the broader worldwide Jewish diaspora popularly brought to the rest of the world's attention by English-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi in the early part of the century.…