Malka

Chef Eyal Shani’s Grub Street Diet

"A new kosher location built around an enormous open wood-and-coal kitchen—about 12 meters of fire—designed for Jewish-style slow cooking. The team experimented with different olive woods and multiple cooking methods (plancha, grill, oven, hanging above the flames) to test their influence on large cuts of meat; a kosher rib eye was sampled medium-rare with a charred exterior, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. Menu development mixed big-fire meat cooking with traditional Jewish items such as gefilte fish, matjes, schmaltz herring, horseradish, egg salad and tuna salad, though some prepared items were judged a bit too sweet. The opening involved intensive meat and wine sampling and close collaboration between the chef and his co-chef in advance of the December launch." - Paula Aceves, Sarah Kilcoyne