Photos by Lucie Monk Carter
Born in Israel, raised in Philadelphia, and now dominating the New Orleans food scene, Chef Alon Shaya has had quite a year. He opened his Israeli-influenced restaurant, Shaya, on Magazine Street in February 2015, picked up a James Beard Award for Best Chef: South, and saw his namesake restaurant earn both Eater’s “Restaurant of the Year” and Esquire’s “Best New Restaurant in America.” His other New Orleans restaurants, Domenica and Pizza Domenica, are enjoying record-breaking years themselves. We spoke with Chef Alon about the culinary scene in Israel, his triumphs in New Orleans, and how he’s forged his own identity in food.
On modern Israeli food culture:
AS: All the Israeli food scene is modern. It’s only been around since 1948. Even still, it took a couple of generations for the food to start to find itself. It’s food from the surrounding areas, plus the people that came to Israel and brought all their cultural influences and cuisine … people from Bulgaria, Greece, Morocco. People who moved to Israel after WWII. They began to cook for each other and make babies together. Things started to evolve.
Now people have more money there. They eat out more, and they’ve got higher tech to spread that word around. There’s a piece of metal in the iPhone that was made in Israel! It really can’t be compared to any other Middle Eastern country because the food is so progressive.
New Orleans is deeply rooted in its cuisine. Hundreds of years of history have passed here. Unless we’re eating Native American cuisine, we’re not truly eating American food. It all comes from different places. But the borrowed food creates its own life and becomes American cuisine over time.
This city has had many years to be able to do that and create the rich history of gumbo, jambalaya, the boucherie, and all these beautiful food traditions. In Israel, the cuisine’s just now trying to find its identity.
On his journey south:
AS: New Orleans had always been on my list of my places I wanted to be. As a kid, I used to watch Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme on TV. Emeril’s Louisiana Real & Rustic was my first cookbook. When I finally had a chance to come down here, I did it right away.
On the success of Shaya in New Orleans:
AS: The people I get to work with everyday at Shaya are some of the best people I’ve ever worked with. They’re passionate, they’re motivated … everyone holds each other to the highest standard. It shows through, the love they’re all putting into the restaurant every single day.
With Domenica [where Chef Alon is executive chef] open for six years, I’ve had a chance to cook for hundreds of thousands of people here. I’ve made a name for myself, and I’ve earned the trust of the diners in New Orleans. So when Shaya opened, people were excited for me to do something closer to home. I was able to cook for the people I’ve grown to know and love at Domenica. Then the word started spreading like wildfire.
The stars really aligned because the idea of what’s being cooked in Israel is exciting here now. People like Yotam Ottolenghi, who write these beautiful cookbooks [about Israeli food], help inspire that. Had I tried to open Shaya five years ago or ten years ago in New Orleans, it would not have worked.
On creating a new dish:
AS: I think about what season it is and what we have available from our local farmers first. Then I look to a specific dish that either I have a personal connection to or one of my chefs does. We talk about that kind of stuff all the time. Other times, it’s just “Hey, we wanna cook Russian food today. Let’s show off the Russian influence on Israeli cuisine.” So we find what fits with season and availability. Then we test it out. That usually takes a couple of weeks, per dish, of tests and tastings. When it’s finally where we want, we put the dish on the menu.
On balancing innovation with authenticity:
AS: I think you can have creativity [in a dish] as long as the foundation is really strong. We have five different kinds of hummus on the menu. One is tahini and a little aleppo pepper. It couldn’t be any more traditional. It’s like margherita pizza. Then we have a hummus with a lamb ragu from a local farm. We make a spicy ragu and top it with fried garbanzo beans for texture and flavor. It’s more creative, but it’s based on the same recipe. This version just takes hummus to a different place.
You don’t see that in Israel a lot, but if there’s something I’ve been struck by at one point, then we’ll do it.
You can’t try too hard. Something as simple as making a hummus with ful, which are slow-cooked dried fava beans. It’s a classic dish, but during summer in New Orleans, you could put that on the menu and take fresh fava beans that are bright green and really beautiful and sauté those up in a little butter, fresh herbs, and orange zest, and then put that on top of the traditional ful. You’re adding creativity without changing the identity of the dish.
On the identity of his own cuisine:
AS: The food at Shaya comes from a rich history of places like Morocco and Yemen, places where they’ve been cooking these dishes for a long time. But the traditional dishes are introduced to something foreign when they get to Israel; and now here in New Orleans, the food is different than it’s ever been.
Everywhere I am, I’m influenced by the food I eat. I’ve been in New Orleans for thirteen years. I make a mean pot of gumbo, and I love making jambalaya for my family on holidays. I have completely embraced the culture of the food here, and I’ve become passionate about New Orleans food just as much as I am about Israeli food and Italian food. I don’t wanna be the Israeli guy that grew up in Philly that lives in New Orleans and is teaching Italy how to make gumbo.
