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Eggplant lines
Burnt beetroot carpaccio
Lemon-cured sardines
Intimate wagyu stew
Whole roasted cabbage cake
Bag of green beans
Milk pudding in espresso

F

or Eyal Shani it’s as much about the feel as the flavour.

The Israeli restaurateur and celebrity chef opened the

first Australian outlet of Miznon, his “fine dining in

a fast-food mask” restaurant, in Melbourne last year.

It’s a raucous, high energy, tambourine-thumping kind of place,

like a constant celebration.

“I need energy,” Shani says. “Making street food is all about

getting the energy from the street, of people on the move. I take

that energy and put it into the food.”

These dishes are all from the menu at Miznon Melbourne,

where Afik Gal, Shani’s long-term collaborator, runs the show.

“The dishes that we are doing here are all about Eyal’s

approach and attitude towards ingredients,” says Gal. “It has to be

all about freshness – hardly anything at Miznon is rolled over to

the next day – and pursuing the finest ingredients that you can.

“We give vegetables the stage. We hardly do any manipulation

or any elaborate cooking processes. We use only black pepper and

Atlantic sea salt as flavourings, so that the characteristic flavour

and shape of the vegetables is emphasised. Sometimes we might

make a dish that relies on something traditional, but mostly we

keep the idea of fresh ingredients as the main one.”

Shani’s relationship to his ingredients and his technique

are unique.

“Eggplant Lines” is inspired by cocaine, “the way it is cut into

rows by a rhythmic, slightly nervous pulse that opens it with the

edge of a credit card”. On the plate, the rather more wholesome

option of molten eggplant mixed with tahini stands in for the

drug, and the precise cutting technique is all about ensuring that

the eggplant retains its shape.

Shani talks about beetroot as being “an animal with a firm

body that can withstand high temperatures”, and calls his

whole-cabbage dish a “cabbage cake” because of the sweetness the

cabbage attains when slow-cooked and how it is served in wedges.

The cooking at Miznon is the real deal, but it’s not a place

where anyone is encouraged to take themselves too seriously.

Fun is the key consideration. At HaSalon, the Tel Aviv restaurant

where Gal first worked for Shani a decade ago, everything was

cooked from scratch each day, and every night the restaurant

would turn into a “wild animalistic zoo with people dancing on

the tables, people hanging from the roof–afeastandaparty”.

“People ask me if this is Israeli food and I say it’s more

about an approach to ingredients, that’s what we do,” says Gal.

“What’s most important is that there’s an atmosphere of feast

and happiness and love.”

Miznon, 59 Hardware La, Melbourne, Vic, (03) 9670 2861,

miznonaustralia.com

p 97

Lemon-cured

sardines