On one of the hottest and most humid days that this summer has managed to provide us, in an old building in the center of Tel Aviv that did not hint at the beautiful place hidden in it, a 9-course vegan chef's dinner was held. Fine dining, so called. What is the noise about you ask? Well, the foodies in Israel are already used to such pop-ups, but for the vegans among them, this is probably an event.
The meal was presided over by chef Omer Tal, who managed to work in some of the best (non-vegan) restaurants in Israel such as Meshia, Raphael and Toto and did an internship at the state-owned Swedish Franzen, where actually food and veganism came together for him.
"Then it was a two-star restaurant and today it already has three," he said, "there, when I was at the top, I felt that I needed my work to have meaning. Suddenly everything came together for me. When I returned to Israel, I did a detox and realized that my work in the kitchen would be meaningful if I connected the Veganism and fine dining".
Two years ago he sold it and started working in the food-tech industry as a chef at the Redefine Meat company, where he accompanies development processes in laboratories, and meets with food technologists to actually help them get out of the laboratory.
"I don't have an agenda to make the whole world 100 percent vegan, and it's enough for people to eat five times a week from plants and the rest of the time to eat meat or the other developments," he explained, "vegan cuisine started around 1944 and you can't compare it to traditions of hundreds and thousands of years. I feel part of some kind of wave in the world that develops veganism on a culinary level, and the most important thing is that it will be delicious."
The price is NIS 325, including the first drink. Not worth every soul, but absolutely not expensive compared to what is happening in Tel Aviv.
"The pop-ups are actually where I perform," he explains, "I bring the latest raw materials for the season, take the big risk and serve people food. It's the most intimate meeting there is." According to him, the decision to hold the last meals was not easy. "My stomach moved and moved due to the situation and I didn't know if I should keep quiet or how appropriate it was. This time I decided yes."
Alongside the seasonal dishes served such as roasted endive, king of the forest mushroom stuffed with black garlic cream on a bed of white beans, eggplant and cheese tortellini, watermelon tartare, miso-chushash aioli and horseradish leaves with smoked carrot, dill and mayonnaise in a crispy nori seaweed wrap (the most delicious dish of the evening, and amen which will enter any menu), a tofu kadita skewer, was also served in a meat-filled burik of Redifine Meat and an egg of YO egg - two Israeli companies that develop substitutes and are on a meteoric rise in the world.
"Apart from seasonality, every meal I also bring something from Israel," he describes, "It's a kind of corrupt fantasy that I think also has a place. In the other meals there was ragout with egg yolk, pasta carbonara and bun with pulled meat. The goal is to break the local, and to challenge." .
If he were to open a restaurant tomorrow, it would try to provide a "normal experience", as he defined it. "Pasta menu, bar and tabon and everything is normal and from the plant. There is something in the vegan restaurants in Israel that a little misses it. In any case, a restaurant is a very high risk today, and if we find the right partners it might happen. Very few succeed and that too after spitting blood."
"In this kind of cooking, you don't have the selection that every other cook has. I don't have ten types of cheese that I can decide between, I have to make everything from scratch, and these are long processes," he explained, "I believe that the culinary culture influences at a level that we don't understand to what extent. The industry needs to be changed And large manufacturers are beginning to understand this and invest in plant-based product start-ups. Even at Michelin you are measured on sustainability and every cook knows this at all."