salad. “But it doesn’t have to be.”
Israel brings all of his life experience, not just his travels
through Germany, to the table when he cooks. Featuring radishes
in a salad, for example, is as much a function of honoring Germany
(radishes are big in Bavaria) as it is an homage to his time in San
Francisco, where he ran the front of the house at the ingredient-
driven Zuni Café.
The plating, too, taps into Israel’s background: he spent years
as an art director for Vanity Fair. As he shaves the bright red
radishes on a mandoline slicer he tells me: “You have to ask
yourself, ‘How does each dish look and how does that relate to
every other dish?’”
Flavor matters too. Over the radishes, he drizzles an esoteric
ingredient from Austria: pumpkin seed oil. I put a bit on my finger
to taste it and the flavor is toasty and nutty, a flavor echoed by
the toasted pumpkin seeds that Israel sprinkles over the salad.
We continue on to a mushroom dish—chanterelles and creminis
sautéed with caraway seeds (another signature German ingredient)
and placed in a gratin topped with bread crumbs—and then we
conclude with Swiss chard dumplings, made with ricotta and based
on an Italian technique.
“Alpine cuisine includes food from France and Italy,” says
Israel by way of explanation.
The blurry lines between the various food cultures melded here
echo a time when Europe’s borders themselves were fluid.
“Modern Europe is all about borders,” he says, “but it wasn’t