The Israeli restaurant Dagon, located in New York City, received a glowing food review, with the New York Post on Friday referring to it as the best restaurant in the city.
The successes of Dagon were achieved despite the severe impact of the coronavirus pandemic on fine dining and the food industry as a whole, leading to many prominent restaurants being forced to shut their doors.
Dagon was also able to stay afloat due in part to luck, as the restaurant was not pressured too harshly to pay commercial property rent by their landlord, hotelier Ira Drukier.
“He never pushed me on the rent,” Dagon owner Simon Oren told the Post.
“He understood our trouble. He basically said, ‘Pay what you can, when you can.’"
The restaurant has been noted for offering the staples of Israeli cuisine, hummus and falafel, as well as interesting twists on Ashkenazi and Sephardic food, such as matzah ball soup and Moroccan cigars.
Regarding the evolution and exportation of Israeli cuisine to major destinations around the world, Oren said that this was due to the increased use of fusion cuisine and Israeli chefs adapting Israeli cuisine to new markets.
“Thirty or forty years ago, Israel was very limited,” Oren noted to the Post. "Then, chefs began traveling around the world and created the new Israeli cuisine."