Fusion Food

“Food is like fashion; it’s always being updated,” says the Dan Tel Aviv Hotel’s food and beverage manager.

by Michele Chabin
Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem — As Israeli cuisine has
grown more sophisticated in recent years, so too has Israeli catering.
As Israelis themselves have becoming more discerning — they travel a great deal and desire the same high quality and variety of food they consume abroad — restaurants, hotels and private caterers have risen to the challenge.
The result is that Westerners who host a bar/bat mitzvah, a wedding or a corporate event here are invariably impressed by the wide range of culinary choices as well as the relatively low price tag: A wedding that would cost $40,000 to $50,000 in New York could total half that in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, and even less on a kibbutz or other off-the-beaten-track location.
Daniel Rogoff, food and wine

critic for the newspaper Haaretz, says the best Israeli catering combines one or more international cuisines with Israeli staple items.
“We’re seeing more and more French- and Italian-style cooking based on Mediterranean ingredients, and this is a very logical and positive development,” Rogoff says. “Several caterers are doing very fine kosher catering.”
One caterer with a loyal “Anglo-Israeli” clientele is Naomi Catering, which offers dairy, meat and pareve menus just about anywhere in the country. It also runs kosher hotels in Italy, with another one slated for Gilbralter.
Half the company’s clients live in English-speaking countries but decide, for whatever reason, to throw their simchas in Israel. The other half reside in Israel but hail from English-speaking countries.
Ze’ev Goldberg’s mother, Naomi, a cordon bleu chef, launched the company from her kitchen in England in 1978 and has been catering Israeli affairs since the family’s aliyah in 1987. He says Israeli events are increasingly sophisticated and, in some cases, quite daring.
“You can rent everything, meaning there’s no limit to what you can do. We’ve used helicopters to transport things up to Herodian,” Goldberg says of King Herod-built mountain fortress south of Jerusalem. “We’ve catered an event for 100 people on Mt. Hermon, at a fortress without electricity or running water. We’ve done events at Timna Park,” a stark desert oasis north of Eilat.
Although his company’s food is inspired mainly by French and Italian cuisine, “we have to stay attuned to the Israeli market, so there’s a fusion,” Goldberg says. “On Shabbat and the holidays, our clientele wants traditional Ashkenazi food like gefilte fish and chopped liver.” The company also offers Sephardi favorites like kubeh (fried dough with meat or vegetables inside), couscous with vegetable soup, and cigars.
For parties, Naomi’s most popular dairy menu consists of various pastas cooked al dente, on-site, and served with a range of Italian sauces. The desserts are French: tarte tatin, pear cream pie, éclairs.
The most popular meat dishes are roast beef made with meat imported from Uruguay, and chicken with lemon, olive oil, garlic and herbs.
“It’s the side dishes where the Israeli side comes in,” Goldberg says. “We use lots of Israeli vegetables like eggplant, peppers, sweet potatoes grilled with herbs in a stone oven, or a fusion dish that uses root vegetables in a curry sauce. Another popular dish is julienned vegetables stir-fried in soy sauce.”
Unlike private kosher caterers, whose clients tend to be religious Jews accustomed to eating only kosher food, the country’s major hotels — which almost universally abide by the dietary laws — say they must compete with non-kosher establishments.
“Food is like fashion; it’s always being updated,” notes Ilan Ben Hakoon, food and beverage manager of the Dan Tel Aviv Hotel. “We started to update our French menu, making it more Mediterranean, about 10 years ago, when people began to travel more. People would go to London or Paris or New York and eat very good [non-kosher] food.”
Back in Israel, Hakoon says, Tel Aviv’s many non-kosher eateries were offering authentic foreign cuisine, “and our guests started eating outside the hotel. They weren’t all that satisfied with hotel food.”
Instead of substituting margarine or non-dairy creamer for butter or cream, Oved Alfia, the Dan Tel Aviv’s chief chef, began incorporating olive oil and herbs, local fruits and vegetables, and fish.
“We focused more on Italian and Spanish Mediterranean food,” Hakoon says. “The results have been remarkable.”
Rogoff, the author of a comprehensive guide to Israeli wines, including non-kosher ones, says he is frustrated by the insistence of most catering halls to serve only ‘yayin mevulshal’ — wine heated to the boiling point. Wine that has been boiled loses its status as wine, and can be opened and poured by a non-Jewish waiter. Only a Jew can open non-mevulshal wine.
“There is no contradiction between kashrut and good wine, but with only one or two exceptions, yayin mevulshal can’t compete with regular wines,” Rogoff says.
The Dan Tel Aviv serves only Israeli wines in its dining rooms and restaurants, but only one type of yayin mevushal, for religious guests. “The boutique wineries in Israel are some of the best in the world,” Hakoon says, “and my wine list is very good. Castel is very good, Ben-Haim is very good. Hebron, Reconati and Emek Ayala are all good wineries. We Israelis have nothing to be ashamed of.”