You had the opportunity to explore.

Mm.

I mean, it was an amazing process, I have to say.

It was just, uh, such a privilege to go on these trips and to have, you know, a little bit of research done and a p- photographer.

And it kind of, uh, you know, w- we're normally quite sort of, we keep to ourselves.

We're quite, you know, not shy, but we don't so much get involved.

But for these trips, we really had to sort of cross a boundary, you know? We had to get into kitchens, and we had to talk to people, and we had to find out the secrets.

Hmm

How did you make love your brand? Itzma, do you want to take that

one? Wow.

It's a big question.

I mean, we are not, we never had sort of a big mission statement.

We never had, you know, ideology or philosophy.

We're chefs, you know, and we actually, when we opened the first restaurant, we had no idea.

We didn't have a strategy.

I

I think it's like the-

I also feel that pistachios is, like, immediate, for me it's lux.

It's the luxury item.

It elevates everything.

It's a treat, you know, whatever you have.

Uh, because it is sort of, you know, yes, delicious, beautiful, but actually quite expensive as well, you know, f- for, compared to other things.

So it is, you know, an element of elevating something that could've been maybe quite workaday.

It took them to the city of Gaziantep, which totally opened their eyes to a whole new level of pistachio appreciation, and one that goes back centuries.

Um, how do you feel interacting with them, representing your Jewishness? And, and maybe answering questions they may have about Judaism, about Jewish food culture.

Well, you know, I, I, I think we w- I was talking to Mike before.

We, we always, you know, like, again, London is a, is a global city, much like New York.

We have sort of really diverse, uh, population.

And we, the food that we serve, or we try to sort of serve really traditional home food, not just from Israel, but from the region.

You know, like the diaspora food and, and Palestinian food, and from our travels.

Uh, and we, we used to get a, a huge clientele from the Gulf coming, and really suddenly tasting the food that they knew from home.

even in, like, the protein era, like, a salad and a, a protein wouldn't-

What do you want to have? You know, what's your comfort food?

I have to say it would probably be something with like if it's just for me wanting to cook something for myself that's nourishing and quick, it would be eggs for sure.

Because eggs, I think it's kind of like nourishing, wholesome, healthy, comes together quick.

It's probably the only thing that would be quicker to make than to eat.

Do you know what I mean? Delicious and so versatile and always around.

So I think that for us, you know, in the restaurants we have, you know, our breakfast menu and of course eggs are very central to it.

But then we keep the egg dishes on the menu all day, but we definitely see a drop after noon, like people stop ordering.

I

[laughs] In terms of spice and everything, yeah.

Yeah, 'cause we eat, you know, everything has, you know, would be spiced and, and would be quite sort of bold, punchy flavors.

Uh, and then there's the sort of the cooking of Jerusalem, which is very sort of hearty and homey, I guess.

Um, Palestinian food, of course, and also all of the food of the-Different diasporas.

You know, we would have, I don't know, sort of my, my downstairs neighbors, they were sort of Kurdi Iraqi, and they would make, you know, their food, and we'd be like, "Oh, what's, what's cooking today?"

Mm.

It's not, like, more of the same.

But every site gives our guests something different.

We, we wanted, you know, the home food, the, the mama's food, if you know what I mean.

But, but it's also, I think the, this aspect that for us, our books reflect us and our lives.

And where we find ourselves, the two of us, and in our work as well, we wanna enjoy a plate of food that's joyous, that's healthy, that's colorful, that's full of flavor, but we honestly, we don't wanna spend, like, crazy amounts of time doing it.

And I have this conversation every day with my chefs.

You know, I, I show them a dish.

I say to them, "Okay, we cook this like this.

I want it to be, like, loads of flavor.

Right.

Mm

... and we wanted to change the, the front.

Uh, and that was always sort of earmarked to be the big, one of the big projects of '26.

And one of the other br- big projects that we had was the, to take our wine program to the next level.

That was definitely sort of something that's been simmering for a long, long time, and then we said, you know, 2026 was the year, and already we started sending all our team to, you know, get their level threes, da, da, da.

And then we were thinking about sort of how to go about it and what to do and what's the next level, and kind of like the penny dropped when these, these three projects suddenly we realized are actually one.

So we nee- gonna bring in the deli, we're gonna sort of do the refit, and we're gonna sort of launch the wine program.

Yeah.