Bavel is a popular L.A. restaurant specializing in Middle Eastern cuisine. Husband and wife chef-owners Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis have returned to the flavors of their childhoods in Bavel, both the restaurant and the cookbook. As adults they fell in love with Italian cooking, so their first restaurant (and cookbook, also written with co-author Lesley Suter) were Bestia, modern Italian dishes where sophisticated dishes are built from the complex flavors of using simple ingredients well.
But Menashe couldn’t help but find himself thinking about the dishes he grew up on in Israel. On his days off, he would cook the Middle Eastern dishes he ate after shopping in the markets with his father. The fresh spices and herbs permeated his senses, and he would devour his favorite falafel or shawarma after. Gergis’ father is from Egypt, so she too understood these flavors and also wanted to return to the dishes of her family. It took a few years to find the location and finalize the recipes, but they made it happen. And L.A. diners loved it.
I am a fan of cooking competitions, and I have seen chef after chef with Middle Eastern experience get rave reviews of their dishes. They seemed to have some sort of secret to their cooking, and I could never understand it until Menashe explained it to me while talking about his beloved culinary heritage. He talked about Italian food, and how easy it is to add some umami (a savory bonus flavor that can add a big dollop of deliciousness) with some cheese or prosciutto.
But the climate of the Middle East doesn’t offer such easy flavor bombs, so cooks have to develop layers of flavor while they’re cooking, starting with dried spices and herbs, and then adding fresh spices, and lastly adding fresh herbs. It’s that kind of mastery of spices that makes Middle Eastern chefs the magicians that they are, and that’s what makes their food so interesting.
It’s that sort of spice mastery that these chefs offer up in Bavel, starting with the spices to include in your pantry and moving on to how to roast them, grind them, and mix up your own spice blends. They then move on to the sauces and stocks that will add so much to your dishes and then to pickles and ferments that will add the acid that will make the spices sing. Then there are the dips and spreads, with no less than 4 recipes for Hummus, before moving on to Vegetables, Breakfasts, Seafood, Meats, Family Recipes, and even Drinks and Desserts.
These are chefs who believe in making things themselves as much as possible. They have recipes for their own Za’atars and Ras el Hanout, Vegetable Stock or Turmeric-Chicken Stock, Preserved Meyer Lemon, Tahini and Yogurt, and breads like Pitas and Laffa. Because of their dedication to all these hand-crafted components, some of their recipes seem complicated. But knowing that they are just trying to find the most flavorful representation of the food of their heritage makes the Shakshuka or the Lamb Neck Shawarma or the Beef Cheek Tagine worth it.
The authors of Bavel are quick to say that they are not interested in the politics of the area. They do not favor the cuisine of any one country. They want to cook with the flavors of the entire Middle East, focusing only on the best ingredients, recipes, and spices that all the countries have to offer. It’s just about the food they grew up on, taking those recipes and making them flavorful, making them modern, and sharing them with others.
I was so impressed with Bavel. It’s filled with gorgeous photography, both of the food and of the places it represents. The recipes are sophisticated, and it’s basically a primer on Middle Eastern seasoning. I learned more about Middle Eastern cuisine just by reading it than I have with any other cookbook, so if you know someone wanting to learn how to use spices to maximize flavors, then Bavel is the place to go for that. If you want to learn Middle Eastern cooking or just want to cook like your favorite L.A. restaurant, then this cookbook is a must.
A copy of Bavel was provided by Ten Speed Press for an unbiased review, with many thanks.
