Jan-Feb-2016_Final-1-4-16-attempt2

ISRAEL

Persian Rice — photo by Graham Blackall

COURTNEY: Because that’s what you love? ALON: Well, it is, but I was pretty much dropped off at an Italian restaurant to go work when I was 15, so that’s why I started cooking Italian food. I did fall in love with it and I recognized a lot of the flavor profiles from the food I ate as a kid, whether it was olives or goat cheese or roasted peppers, a lot of eggplant, all these ingredients that both the Israeli culture and Italian culture base their cuisine off of. So, for me, those were the foods that I cared about. Once I moved to the South I began learning about Southern culture. Emily grew up in Georgia. EMILY: North Georgia, a small town. I went to Tulane for undergrad — my senior year was Katrina — and then I stayed in New Orleans. Alon and I met the year after I graduated. ALON: Emily and I would go visit her family in Georgia. We’d go to the Southern Foodways Symposium in Oxford and we would watch a ballet with people dressed up like okra doing pliés and pirouettes. We would listen to poems about pralines, and everyone would sit around and eat boudin and talk about how magical it was and I was like, what is up with all of this, what’s going on? Why do people care about biscuits so much? What is it about this culture that is so moving for so many people?

“Alon Shaya won the 2015 James Beard Award for Best Chef South (the culinary equivalent of winning the Oscar), and his newest restaurant, Shaya, was recently named Best New Restaurant in America by Esquire Magazine, and The Daily Meal. He’s a rockstar chef, but like his mentor and partner, John Besh (a rockstar chef if ever there was one), he’s never too busy to answer a few questions. I was fortunate to speak with Alon and his wife, Emily, founder and owner of Prêt á Fête, about their relationship to food, New Orleans and each other. Our interview took place on a recent Monday afternoon in the beautiful upstairs banquet room at Shaya on Magazine Street in New Orleans.” —Courtney Singer

were young and living in Philadelphia, what were the kinds of things you ate in your home? ALON: I was born in Israel, and raised in Philadelphia. A lot of what you see on the menu here at Shaya, like bourekas, which are puff pastry turnovers with feta cheese on the inside, and lutenitsa, a tomato eggplant pepper spread — those are foods I grew up with, my grandmother’s recipes. COURTNEY : Are those Israeli dishes? ALON: Well, nothing is really Israeli, history-wise, but it’s currently Israeli food because it’s part of the Israeli culture and what’s being eaten there and cooked there every day.My grandmother and grandfather were Bulgarian, actually. My mom used a lot of my grandmother’s recipes and then came up with her own as well. She made a lot of stuffed cabbage and peppers with rice and meat. So that’s a lot of my food background. But once I started cooking for a living and went to culinary school it was all about Italian for me.

COURTNEY: Since this is My Rouses Everyday Around the World Issue, let’s start with your international travels and food experiences. Before opening Domenica you did a year in Italy. ALON: It was right after Emily and I started dating in 2007.Shewould come over to visit and we would rent a car and travel together through Italy and kind of explore different towns. COURTNEY: Do you choose places based on food or other things? ALON: Food is definitely the number one thing because we’re both very passionate about food, but I depend on Emily to teach me about culture so we can go to museums and parks. (Emily laughs.) EMILY: Usually when we travel Alon has ideas about where he wants to go, and I try to piece together an itinerary that makes sense so we’re not zigzagging everywhere. COURTNEY: You started with the Italian cooking when you were older, but when you

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