White hot kosher summer: 4 new South Florida restaurants dish shakshuka pizza, tahini shakes

If you’re keeping kosher in South Florida, a wave of new restaurants is giving religious gourmands fresh reasons to rejoice.

From an “urban hummus bar” to a glatt kosher steakhouse, these restaurants turn out inventive cuisine that makes observing ancient Jewish dietary laws called kashrut more enjoyable – and a little easier.

The following four restaurants are all kosher-certified by the Miami-based Orthodox Rabbinical Board of South Florida, tasked with ensuring that foods contain no forbidden ingredients or mixtures. In general, kosher restaurants never mix meat with dairy and permit fin fish but not shellfish. Meat, in particular, requires special handling, and is considered “glatt kosher” if it’s a permitted species (chicken or beef, but not pork), and if it has been humanely butchered in accordance with the laws of Jewish slaughter.

What also distinguishes kosher restaurants: They are all closed during shabbat, which begins Friday at sunset and ends after dark Saturday evening.

Chef-owner Tovi Sadres can’t begin to count how many fresh chickpeas he’s ground into savory hummus in front of customers at Vish Hollywood, a vegetarian “urban hummus bar” that debuted July 1.

But he will argue that no one crafts hummus quite like him. The open-kitchen kosher restaurant from Sadres and his partner, Lior Spector, imports the legumes directly from Israel, along with Ethiopian tahini and Yemen pita, he says. Every menu item is considered pareve, and a rabbi from the Orthodox Rabbinical Board visits daily to hand-wash fresh parsley and cilantro for Vish’s salads and fruit-based shakes.

“I’m glad we have this extra inspection,” Sadres says of the rabbi. “I don’t want to serve any product that doesn’t fit the Jewish will.”

Vish, an American offshoot of the Israeli restaurant chain Hummus Eliyahu (which has 80 locations), turns hot hummus dishes into vegan shawarma (with cumin, sweet paprika and olive oil), Maghrebi shakshuka (eggs poached in a sauce of Moroccan sweet pepper and spicy tomatoes) and falafel pita pockets. All hummus is blended with tahini and spices to yield a creamier texture, Sadres says.

Vish’s other signature dish, Ethiopian tahini shakes, are vegetarian, infused with frozen fruit and include the Red Shake, blended with strawberry, blueberry, shredded cocoa beans, bananas, dates, maca powder and almond milk. Matcha Detox, meanwhile, combines bananas, dates, spinach, mint, apples and chia seeds.

“We care about kosher but Vish is really for everyone,” especially people who don’t keep kosher, he says. “People who aren’t Jewish say we make health-food shakes because we only use sugar from the fruit.”

Vish Hollywood is at 2893 Stirling Road, Hollywood. Hours are 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday. A second Vish, with different ownership, is located in Surfside. Call 954-404-8855 or go to Vish.rest.

Café Mon Ami is a rare find that sits inside a strip mall just east of Dixie Highway in Boca Raton. The French café is the inspiration of rabbi and chef Michel Abitbol, whose French accent is undeniable and a “hello” is often replaced by “bonjour madame.”

“Family oriented, very cozy, really fine French cuisine,” says Abitbol. “Everything is fresh every day and we have applied for organic labels.”

Born in south Morocco and classically trained in France, Abitbol has opened cafés around the country. The pandemic led him to South Florida, where he opened Café Mon Ami on Valentine’s Day.

“I came to Florida because I felt safe and wanted to romance the clients,” the rabbi-chef says.

It shows on his menu, with items like the Romeo et Juliette crepe and bite-sized, colorful, scratch-made pastries.

Abitbol says he has long sourced his kosher products from France, which is home to the third largest Jewish community in the world next to Israel and the United States, according to the World Jewish Congress.

“Our products are mostly European from France, Belgium, Switzerland,” he says, also acknowledging local ingredients are equally important. “Every product is well-checked. I travel everywhere to pick up my own milk, cheese without corn syrup. A lot of kosher products have corn syrup, we don’t.”

Every third Friday, the chef’s religious dedication meets his love for entertaining with a Shabbat dinner. Because he is a rabbi, Abitbol offers a religious teaching along with kiddush, a prayer and blessing over wine.

The chef also caters for local temples, country clubs and Jewish events. His 16-inch challah bread made from scratch is well-known and popular. “I sell about 150 a week, so call me two days in advance,” he says.

To reserve a spot for Shabbat dinner, he recommends calling a week in advance. “People see another side of Judaism where you have to experience Judaism not just going to temple, you have to feel something…When you participate with other people you really feel what Judaism is.”

Cafe Mon Ami is at 265 NE Spanish River Blvd., Boca Raton. Hours are 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday-Thursday. Closes at 4 p.m. Fridays, except for the monthly Shabbat dinner ($45). Closed on Saturdays.

Kosher pizza is one of the highlights that attracts Jewish visitors to Cafe Noir in Hollywood opened in 2020.

“Some of the more religious customers, they look for the dairy to be specifically Cholov Yisroel. It’s more than just kosher, it’s a specific kosher,” said manager Eytan Gelman.

Meat and dairy products cannot be eaten together by kosher standards, which is why pizzas at Café Noir feature cheese and vegetables, using eggs as a protein. Their shakshuka pizza comes with shakshuka sauce, peppers, onions, tomatoes, feta cheese, mozzarella cheese and sunny-side-up eggs.

“It’s kosher because of the cheese we use. The dough for the pizza is made here,” Gelman said.

The restaurant has a wide-ranging menu with salads and sandwiches, pastas and fish. It also has a full bar of kosher spirits, and when things get busy they bring up the music.

“Everybody who comes here loves the Hebrew music. People love it, they sing along and dance to it,” said the 21-year-old manager.

The restaurant is a rebranding of the long-running Mozart Café in Hollywood. “They remember us from there, but we decided to change the location and the name, and updated the menu for something better,” Gelman said.

Cafe Noir is at 3000 Stirling Road, Suite 112, Hollywood. Hours are 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday; 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday; 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Saturday. 954-584-5171; cafenoirhollywood.com

A wonderland of diverse Jewish cuisine fills west Boca Raton’s Fountains Center, an unassuming strip mall now home to a fine-dining gastropub (Roadhouse), a Chinese takeout (Eiden Wok), a pizzeria (Rave Pizza and Sushi) and an Italian dairy restaurant (Carmela’s) – all certified kosher. The latest restaurant to occupy this plaza, glatt kosher steakhouse Oak and Ember, debuted in May, part of a growing kosher empire from restaurateur Daniel Cohen and chef Rashard Smiley.

At Oak and Ember, Smiley serves entrees of braised short rib with mashed potatoes and wild mushrooms ($58), herb-crusted lamb chops with sweet potato puree ($66), Chilean sea bass glazed with miso and topped with celery root puree ($45) and a 24-ounce bone-in ribeye with fingerling potatoes and sauteed mushrooms ($89). Dishes are more expensive, Smiley says, because there is more complicated preparation of glatt kosher-certified meats.

“All animals are raised and slaughtered under kosher bylaws,” says Smiley, who sources his cuts from Miami wholesaler Best Value Kosher. “Our rabbi checks and washes the vegetables and oversees us cooking the food.”

Rabbi Fred Weiss, who worships at Chabad of Boynton Beach, is in charge of inspecting produce and meats at Oak and Ember and Roadhouse, a glatt kosher gastropub next door. “We buy the meats already soaked and salted, and I make sure the animals have clear veins to verify they are kosher.”