A festivus for the kosher eaters in us

November 14, 2008 - 11:34 AM by Harry

Chefs admiring the autumn harvest ingredients as they prepare their Chef Eats Kosher menus Running parallel to the kosher wine revolution (which has taught us over the past 15 years or so that it doesn’t have to be grape cough syrup to be rabbinically approved) has been the kosher food revolution (which has taught us over the past 10 years or so that it doesn’t have to be boiled chicken necks to be rabbinically approved). Much has been written about the kosher gourmet scene in various cities, and as affluence and religious observance become decreasingly exclusive concepts, the scene has only flourished.

Case in point with the Chef Eats Kosher Festival, already underway at 40 restaurants all over Israel and running through Thursday. Part co-opted marketing campaign, part celebration of a niche business community’s renaissance, and part charity drive (more on this below), Chef Eats Kosher is the brainchild of production company One Mouth. In a statement released through their publicity agents, One Mouth principles Tal Nechemia and Eran Zingler summed up the wave they’re riding:

“In recent years, we’ve seen a steady increase in crowds of people looking for experiences going out that are high-quality yet kosher. Tens of thousands came to the first kosher festival in Petach Tikva that we put on this summer, and the success of the Chef Eats Kosher Festivals in recent years has encouraged us to bring it back….”

The main draw to this fourth incarnation of Chef Eats Kosher is its affordability: When else can one enjoy a specialty three-course meal at a top-tier (well, most of them are top-tier, anyway – Jerusalem’s only participating eatery is, strangely, the local branch of the Yotvata café) restaurant for the extremely affordable price of NIS 84?

And at every Chef Eats Kosher-participating table are envelopes for donations to Table to Table, a Ra’anana-based organization which rescues leftovers from restaurants and events and serves them to the needy. The Table to Table-Chef Eats Kosher charity drive alone aims to help some 5000 schoolchildren, although the envelopes on the tables are for cash donations.

A partial list of 2008′s Chef Eats Kosher restaurants appears in English, along with some recommendations, here, while the full, Hebrew-only list can be seen here.

Photo courtesy Dan Peretz.

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