A new outpost of Eyal Shani’s popular kosher restaurant, Malka, has opened in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
Malka Dumbo joins Malka on the Upper West Side — Shani’s first kosher establishment outside of Israel, which opened to great buzz last November — and Miznon in Times Square in Shani’s rapidly expanding kosher empire in New York City and beyond.
Malka Dumbo is Shani’s third kosher-certified establishment to open in New York in less than a year, bringing the Israeli celebrity chef’s total number of restaurants in New York to eighth — plus one Michelin star, which was bestowed upon his “highly seasonal” Greenwich Village spot Shmoné last year.
Shani told the New York Jewish Week that he chose the Dumbo location, most recently home to well-received but short-lived Israeli restaurant Nina, for its “romance,” as he described it. “It is the most romantic neighborhood and place,” he said of the neighborhood. “I couldn’t refuse. It’s like a dream when you are thinking about New York.”
While Shani himself doesn’t keep kosher, he said his focus on expanding his kosher network is related to the attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023. “Before 7 October, I tried to connect to the world through the terroir, the culture of being Israeli,” he said, using the French culinary term for natural environment. “What I produced and created was food that was in style from the special place that we are living in in Israel, in between the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
“After 7 October, that identity was changed,” he continued. “I found that I’m not just living in Israel as a cultural place that’s got some of the best food in the world. I also recognise that I belong to my people, to the Israeli people, and a big part of them are Jewish people. The terroir was changed from a geographic, cultural terroir into a national terroir.”
Shani first arrived in New York six years ago when he opened Miznon, a fast-casual street food restaurant, in Chelsea Market. Since then he’s opened a variety of spots in the city, including the music-oriented Port Sa’id, party spot HaSalon and several locations of Miznon.
And while Shani recently obtained kosher certification for the Times Square location of Miznon, he has no plans on turning other non-kosher restaurants into kosher ones. “In the other restaurants in my life, I need the complete freedom of cooking,” he said.
Shani, who was one of the New York Jewish Week’s 36 to Watch this year, is known for his vegetable-centric cuisine and his focus on seasonal ingredients, sourced from small local purveyors, in his ever-changing menus. Shani cites his vegan grandfather as inspiration, and he told the New York Jewish Week that while meat and fish are always on his menu at all his restaurants, more than half of his dishes are plant-based.
Malka Dumbo features some of Shani’s signature dishes like schnitzel stuffed with mashed potatoes, a tomato farro risotto, French and Israeli wines and an espresso martini made creamy with tahini. There are also some dishes exclusive to Brooklyn, such as bourekas stuffed with scallions and za’atar.
Though Shani is well-known — even notorious — for his love of tomatoes, he considers olive oil to be an essential ingredient of his cuisine. “Our exclusive use of olive oil, even in sweet pastries, the prominence of vegetables, fresh, local seafood, and the finest kosher meat cuts allow our guests, whether they keep kosher or not, to fully enjoy and appreciate the beauty of nature and all it provides,” he said in a press release.
Shani told the New York Jewish Week last year that he first opened a kosher restaurant because kosher-keeping consumers were “craving” his food. “These people are part of my nation,” Shani said. “Part of my people. How can I make food without letting half of my people eat it? That is the main reason I opened Malka.”
“The real thing I want to do in my life is to show the light that is coming out of kosher food — it doesn’t have to be a dark cuisine or limiting,” he said. “That is the reason why I continue to create a new kosher cuisine, and one of the best places to do it is in New York. It is filled with Jewish people.”
Shani is opening another Malka restaurant by the end of the year — this one in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is also opening another kosher outpost of Miznon in Holmdel, New Jersey, sometime this autumn.
