4,11111 .11.11001110 1 .0•11111111MMINNEFP,

This Week

ERIC SILVER
Israel Correspondent

Insight

Remember
When • •

King Of
Kosher

baking Turkish-style cheese
bourekas and sponge cake
for hungry, but undiscrimi-
ne summer
nating, soldiers. When he
orning in 1999,
came off duty, he did a
Rafi Cohen, a
night shift at Arcadia, one
scrawny 23-year-
of Jerusalem's first shrines to
old with jeans and crew-
nouvelle cuisine.
cut black hair, marched
After the army, Rafi went
A tip of the toque for the young chef
into the manager's office at
to France and apprenticed
who transformed a Jerusalem restaurant. himself, without pay, to a
the King David Hotel in
Jerusalem and announced
series of Michelin-starred
that he wanted to be the
restaurants in Tours and
chef of La Regence, the
Paris, before broadening his
five-star hostelry's show-
range with stints in London
piece restaurant.
and Naples.
The manager, Gideon
He transformed La
Avrami, asked for his
Regence from a steak-and-
resume. "Never mind
chips grill room to a gour-
that," the grandson of poor
met restaurant that is
Moroccan immigrants
attracting up to 50 diners a
replied. "I'll cook you a
night, mostly Israelis, many
lunch, then you can decide
from out of town. Just about
if you want me."
the only tourists these trou-
The King David had no
bled days are on Jewish soli-
vacancies, certainly not for-
darity missions, who didn't
a star chef, but Avrami was
come for the 10-course, $80
intrigued by his chutzpah.
menu degustation" (taster's
So Rafi made lunch for the
menu).
A la carte dinner for
Raft Cohen, in a private
hotel's five top managers. They hired him on the spot.
two,
with
wine, may easily
dining room of La Regence
Less than two years later, GaultMillau Israel, the local fran- Restaurant in the King David. set you back $250.
chisee of the French gourmet's bible, has named La Regence
Rafi works comfortably
as one of the five best restaurants in Israel and embraced Rafi
within the limits of kashrut.
Cohen, now 25, as its "find of the year." Since La Regence is
"I don't fake it," he says. "I don't use margarine or pareve
the only kosher eatery among the top quintet, that makes
cream. I cook just as I would in a non-kosher restaurant. I
him Israel's leading kosher chef.
try to bring simple food to this restaurant, but very aesthetic,
.
GaultMillau, celebrated for its rigorous standards, awarded very light. If the ingredients are good and you make it well,
him 16 points out of 20 with two toques (chef's hats). Only
it's perfect. You don't need cream or butter."
one other restaurant, Yonatan Roshfeld in Tel Aviv, topped
He defines his style as "French technique, with a North
that with 17 points and three toques. "Without shame," says African touch": spices, olive oil, garlic, fresh Israeli meat, fish,
Ofer Shahal, a Tel Aviv lawyer who serves on GaultMillau's
fruit and vegetables. He doesn't over-garnish. He likes his
local board, "you can
. compare four or five Israeli restaurants
dishes to speak for themselves.
with the best in France."
The boy from the Katamonim is part of a revolution that
Good-bye turkey schnitzel, hello eggplant caviar seared
has swept restaurants here over the past decade. The yuppies,
with quail's eggs and white truffle oil.
and some of their elders, have money. They travel the world.
A casual visitor to the Regence's basement kitchen might
They've learned that there's more to eating out than falafel
mistake Rafi Cohen for a junior assistant. He doesn't even
and kebabs, more to wine than Carmel President's Sparkling.
wear a chef's hat. His staff of eight call him by his first name.
"Ten years ago," sniffs Rafi Cohen, "they didn't know what
But he talks like a man who knows exactly what he is doing
truffles were."
and where he wants to go.
Surprisingly, perhaps, it's not just a metropolitan phenome-
He grew up in the Katamonim, a rundown Jerusalem sub- non. You can eat haute cuisine at the Auberge Shulamit in
urb better known for its drug dealers than its cordon bleu
Upper Galilee, Uri Buri in Acre, Rama's Kitchen in the
kitchens. He imbibed his culinary zeal from his grandmother, Jerusalem hills. One of Israel's most successful sea food
who came to Israel from Casablanca in 1952. She cooked for restaurants, Idi's, with seating for a couple of hundred, is
the family, he says, but she was "very professional" — the
located in the industrial zone of Ashdod.
ultimate accolade.
The range is international: from Far East to Middle East,
Little Rafi carried her bags from the market twice a week,
Indian, French, Italian, Californian, Eastern and Central
then helped her clean the chickens and pigeons a neighbor
European. Tel Aviv even boasts an Irish pub serving Irish
slaughtered in the backyard.
stew with the Guinness.
He launched his career at 13, learning pastry-making three
And if that's not enough, there's always MacDonald's, with
nights a week after school. He did his Israeli army service
or without kosher certification. ❑

Om

"

From the pages of the Jewish News for
this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.

„

Jewish students at Leeds University
in England were forced to remove a
poster proclaiming Jerusalem "the
eternal capital of Israel."
Lech Walesa, Polish president,
planned a tour of the Holocaust
Memorial Museum site in
Washington, D.C.
Adat Shalom Synagogue Sisterhood
honored Detroiter Toby Dobkin for
her 40 years of affiliation.

The board of education of the Los
Angeles public schools ordered that the
Nazi atrocities agaihstkws in World
War II be studied in the - s Cflools.
Detroiter Sam Rich started his sec-
ond year as head of the Metro Detroit
Israel Bonds Prime Minister's Club.

494,

A grenade explosion in a market-
place in the Gaza Strip injured two
Israeli soldiers.
Rabbi Ernest Greenfield, presi-
dent of the Mizrachi-Hapoel
Hamizrachi of Detroit, was hon-
ored in Skokie, Ill., on behalf of the
Hebrew Theological College.

The Israeli government opened a
permanent consulate in Philadelphia.
The Shapero School of Nursing
at Sinai Hospital in Detroit gradu-
ated 28 students in its seventh class.
Grace Bennish, a student at Detroit's
Mumford High School, won six blue
ribbons, nine gold keys and six honor-
able mentions at the Michigan
Scholastic Art Awards contest

mistz, ,:Ant •
A Baghdad synagogue was bombed,
resulting in the death of nine Jews.
The Jewish community in Tokyo
opened its first Jewish club, sup-
ported by a large immigrant contin-
gent from Manchuria and China.
Detroiter Gerald S. Weintraub
made the honor roll of Kenyon
College.
—Compiled by Sy Manello,
Editorial Assistant

eIN

3/9
2001

29