{"id":99176,"date":"2022-10-30T17:05:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T15:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=99176"},"modified":"2022-10-27T15:20:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T13:20:25","slug":"27-05-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=99176","title":{"rendered":"Shawarma With a Pedigree"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Shawarma With a Pedigree<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n


\nDANA KESSLER<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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In Tel Aviv\u2019s gentrifying Carmel Market, owners of a high-end restaurant open up a new outlet for affordable fare<\/strong><\/span>
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\nCOURTESY SHAWARMA RAMBAM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A few months ago, a new shawarma place opened in the Carmel Market area in Tel Aviv. That may not sound like big news, but Shawarma Rambam isn\u2019t like other shawarma places. But then again, the Carmel Market isn\u2019t what it used to be either. And both go very well hand-in-hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Shawarma Rambam is located on the car-free Rambam street\u2014one of the streets surrounding the market\u2014and what\u2019s different about it is the fact that it belongs to HaBasta, which is a two-minute walk away. For many years, HaBasta has held its position as one of the city\u2019s most revered high-end restaurants. It\u2019s a mixture between a market restaurant and a chef\u2019s restaurant. The atmosphere is informal and the design casual, but its food is highly esteemed, and expensive, and it recently reached No. 14 at the\u00a0Middle East & North Africa\u2019s 50 Best Restaurants Awards<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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High-end restaurants don\u2019t usually open shawarma places\u2014these are two very different worlds. But the owners of HaBasta had a dream of making shawarma for a long time. One of the most popular items on HaBasta\u2019s menu is their signature pork shawarma\u2014a premium take on the real thing\u2014but that didn\u2019t satisfy their shawarma cravings. They wanted to make the real thing as well, and finally started doing so when COVID-19 struck. While restaurants were closed and only takeout was allowed, they purchased a professional shawarma spit. Then, they approached Yoni Mermelshtine.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mermelshtine grew up in the restaurant business. His dad, Ezra, was the founder of the beloved Tel Avivi fish restaurant Barbunia, where Yoni worked as well. After his dad died, in 2017, Mermelshtine and his brother sold Barbunia, and went on to other culinary ventures. Now Mermelshtine runs Shawarma Rambam in partnership with HaBasta.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat\u2019s so special about Shawarma Rambam is its pedigree,\u201d Matan Sharon, street food critic for\u00a0Time Out Tel Aviv<\/em>, told me. \u201cThe mere fact that they are the shawarma of HaBasta gives them an automatic badge of excellence. The moment the hedonism and the pedantry of HaBasta enter the pita, it turns it into street food with a gourmet twist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to their namesake, Shawarma Rambam serves other dishes as well, such as skewered shashlik and vegetarian dishes; they sell beer, have a wine list, and even host wine events once a week. Shawarma and wine might not be a combination that people are used to, but Shawarma Rambam is casually reinventing shawarma culture. There is nothing fancy or ostentatious about the place, but it\u2019s obviously run by food lovers, and is a place that connoisseurs can appreciate and foodies can enjoy. And indeed, their clientele is a mix of people who frequent HaBasta (or wish they could afford it), and random hungry people just looking for a shawarma stand. Shawarma is usually consumed for lunch, on the go, but Shawarma Rambam is also a place to sit down for a fun and unassuming evening.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen we opened, we didn\u2019t know exactly where we\u2019re going with this,\u201d Mermelshtine told me. \u201cAll we knew is that we wanted to make the best shawarma there is. The quality of meat we use is probably higher than most shawarma places use.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Traditionally, when you ate shawarma you didn\u2019t ask where the meat comes from. Nowadays, though, people are more interested in the quality of meat. If once, most red meat in Israel was imported frozen from Argentina, now there\u2019s more local meat, which is what they use at Rambam. Their meat comes from a butcher who also owns a shop in the Carmel Market, who gets his meat from Dabah\u2014a family-owned company from Deir al-Asad, an Arab town in the Galilee region, that is responsible for over 60% of Israel\u2019s fresh meat. The butcher shop cuts the pieces Mermelshtine desires, and each morning at Shawarma Rambam the meat is piled up on the spits: one spit of veal with lamb\u2019s fat and one spit of pullet marinated overnight in a yogurt marinade. On Thursday nights they have a special of pork shawarma. It\u2019s not the same as HaBasta\u2019s, but well worth a try, and obviously more affordable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s not just about the meat; it\u2019s also about building the pita. The final and very important touch is supervised by local legend Effi Raz of Sabich Frischman and Sabich Tchernichovsly fame. In Tel Aviv his first name is synonymous with\u00a0sabich<\/a>\u00a0(a pita dish containing fried eggplant, hard-boiled eggs, hummus, tahini, amba, salad, and sometimes boiled potatoes). Effi is an expert in mixing the salads and the meat inside the pita so that there is more flavor in every bite. As far as the condiments Rambam offer, they\u2019ve got tzatziki (yogurt sauce), tahini, z\u2019hug (Yemenite hot sauce), fried hot peppers, amba (a mango pickle condiment of Indian Jewish origin, which no shawarma is complete without), tomatoes, parsley with green onions, and onions with sumac (a purple spice that isn\u2019t spicy but tastes like lemon).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Shawarma Rambam\u2019s success isn\u2019t without context. It is actually part of a larger shawarma trend going on in Israel right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe shawarma trend in Tel Aviv started a few years ago with the opening of restaurants specializing in Turkish doner kebab, like the wonderful Mutfak,\u201d Sharon told me. \u201cAnd more recently there was a popular doner pop-up in HaCarmel market called Gerti. These things took the way people perceive shawarma up a notch. The COVID crisis taught restaurants that they need to diversify. They learned that they need to create more fast-food options, which also work as takeout and are more reasonably priced. Even the fanciest of chefs understands now that most people can\u2019t afford expensive restaurants, so they started offering street food as well, either in a physical location or as take out. They didn\u2019t abandon their expensive restaurants, but they started creating quality food for the everyday person as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Author and food writer\u00a0Adeena Sussman<\/a>\u00a0wrote the cookbook\u00a0Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen<\/em>, which was named a Best Fall 2019 cookbook by\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0Bon Appetit<\/em>, and\u00a0Food & Wine<\/em>. She made aliyah in 2018 and since then she cooks and writes from her home, located in the Carmel Market area. Sussman gets all of her produce in the market and knows it like the back of her hand. I met her for coffee at her favorite espresso bar at the end of Carmel Market to talk about Shawarma Rambam. \u201cA lot of the best street food in Israel right now is from people with a fine dining background,\u201d Sussman agreed. \u201cThere are a lot of fine-dining refugees and there is a little bit of quality control going on. It used to be that no one asked what was in a shawarma or where the meat came from, but that changed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sussman is also very much aware of the current shawarma trend. \u201cShawarma is a thing now,\u201d she told me. \u201cIt\u2019s funny to say that because I don\u2019t think shawarma ever really went away. It\u2019s true that Israel has the highest proportions of\u00a0vegans<\/a>\u00a0in the world but it\u2019s still only a small percentage. I don\u2019t think your average Israeli 25-year-old male was ever eating vegan health food. But nowadays shawarma is getting a stamp of approval. COVID brought out people\u2019s desire for elemental traditional food because people were seeking comfort. And it\u2019s also about what people can afford. Nowadays in Tel Aviv, paying less than 50 shekels [about $14] for a filling meal is good value for money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even though it has some popular veteran shawarma restaurants, like Dabush, Tel Aviv has never been the go-to place for shawarma. In Israel, Haifa is known as shawarma city. The best shawarma stands in the country are located there, and shawarma connoisseurs are known to make pilgrimages to Shawarma Emil or Shawarma Hazan in the northern city. Up until recently, most shawarma in Tel Aviv was made of turkey or pullet\u2014mostly turkey. People traveled to Haifa to get veal shawarma with lamb\u2019s fat. The current shawarma trend brought veal shawarma with lamb\u2019s fat to Tel Aviv, too. And now in Tel Aviv (at Shawarma Rambam and other places) there is an extra bonus: yogurt sauce, like in Turkey, while in Haifa it\u2019s strictly tahini.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I theorize that Tel Aviv was never a place for shawarma because it is considered a cosmopolitan and therefore inauthentic city. For many, Tel Aviv is a place for sushi or hamburgers. For authentic Middle Eastern food\u2014be it shawarma, hummus, or falafel\u2014you go elsewhere. But since Shawarma Rambam is related to HaBasta, it doesn\u2019t need to be \u201cauthentic\u201d\u2014whatever that means. It has to be of high quality and it has to be delicious, as is expected of all new eateries in the increasingly gentrified Carmel Market.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tel Aviv\u2019s central outdoor market opened in 1920. For years it was the place to buy cheap fresh produce, cheap clothes, and designer knockoffs. Nowadays, like everyplace else, it\u2019s going through quite a bit of gentrification. And in recent years it has become a haven for foodies, including special food tours of the market.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe fact that Shawarma Rambam is connected to HaBasta speaks to something about the high-low approach to cuisine in Tel Aviv,\u201d Sussman suggested. \u201cHaBasta is one of the most expensive restaurants in Tel Aviv, while Shawarma Rambam offers an affordable option. And there are many places like that in the market area right now. The best places that opened in the market recently are foodie but they\u2019re not high end. Like\u00a0Diverso Pizza<\/a>, which is a reasonably priced Neapolitan pizza, or places like Drexler and\u00a0Panda Pita<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0HaCarmel 40<\/a>, which makes an amazing fish sandwich.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Shawarma Rambam is a welcome new addition to the Carmel Market\u2019s growing foodie scene. And now, you don\u2019t have to shell out the big bucks to taste a bit of HaBasta.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dana Kessler<\/strong> has written for\u00a0Maariv,\u00a0Haaretz,\u00a0Yediot Aharonot, and other Israeli publications. She is based in Tel Aviv.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Shawarma With a Pedigree DANA KESSLER In Tel Aviv\u2019s gentrifying Carmel Market, owners of a high-end restaurant open up a new outlet for affordable fare . . COURTESY SHAWARMA RAMBAM A few months ago, a new shawarma place opened in the Carmel Market area in Tel Aviv. That may not sound like big news, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99176"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99260,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99176\/revisions\/99260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}