Five of The Best Dishes at Miznon, In Chef Eyal Shani’s Own Words

Baby Whole Roasted Cauliflower Melted Into Its Own Crown

Eyal Shani claims to have invented the whole roasted cauliflower. Whether he did or didn’t – and that conundrum is all part of the Miznon mythology – there’s nevertheless no denying the ubiquity on modern menus of the whole roasted cauliflower. It’s Miznon’s star dish and, at every site, cauliflowers are stacked up on proud display like Amalfi lemons at the River Café.

It came about with Shani’s realisation that cauliflower is a single flower and should not be broken up when it’s cooked, so started experimenting cooking with it whole. Thus, the cauliflower cooks in its own juices, giving it a more intense cauliflower sweetness. The recipe calls for nothing more than salt (they use Gros Sel de Guerande), olive oil and no butter whatsoever,  however buttery it may taste. That’s the cauliflower doing its own work. Shani’s goal is to let the cauliflower ‘speak’. Many may now roast their cauliflowers, you possibly even do it yourself, but few have the courage to be so non-interventionist.

Shani’s famous for his cauliflower but the dish he’s most proud of is his tomato dish. “You cannot imagine, I invented so many things in food,” he says, more modestly than it probably sounds. “I’m one of the main heroes of the Israeli new cuisine but I’m not proud of that; I’m proud that I’ve found that by cutting the tomato into two, and squeezing the ovaries of both halves, I created a new sauce. When you do that act and squeeze the tomato’s ovaries over the food, immediately all the sun, the food, that the ingredient collected inside itself is coming out, the sweetness, the light. It’s so simple. It’s a movement but that movement was not in the world before. That’s the thing of which I am most proud.”

The Best Bolognese Spaghetti in Town

Don’t tell your mum/nonna/roomie. This pita actually originated at Miznon in Tel Aviv and is relatively new to the menu. Essentially, it’s Shani’s ragù recipe and spaghetti in a pita with some spicy salsa and Parmesan. It was one of the Miznon team’s successful ‘suck it and see’ ideas that worked out. They don’t all.

To a Brit, bastardising spag bol is no big deal; our knowingly inauthentic teatime favourite is already many, many removes from traditional ragù Bolognese. If Miznon opens a branch in Italy, well, let’s see how it goes down there.

Run Over Potato

Where to begin with the “run over potato”? So the story goes, the dish was Shani’s subconscious response to a murder case he’d read about, where the perp drove over the victim six times with a car. Shani found himself doing the same to a potato, only with a 12kg pestle and mortar in lieu of vehicle. Sour cream, dill, spring onion and a light touch of garlic are spooned onto a baked potato with olive oil and salt in a folded sheet of greaseproof paper. The chef then crushes it as flat as it will go using, somewhat arbitrarily, a chunk of rail track from London Underground (it’s clean, don’t worry). What’s clever about the dish, in terms of eatability, is that because it’s flat, every single piece of potato is in contact with the sauce.

Potatoes crop up regularly, including in the fish and chip pita, where they’re crushed but not to the point of obliteration. Shani explains: “We cook the potatoes in a completely different way, squeezing them and breaking them before frying, rather than cutting them, to bring out all the texture and taste of each potato. You have to understand the genome of the ingredient, and the precise movements you have to make not to lose any information that is in the ingredient, not the texture, not the aromas, not the taste. That’s very important to me. All the time I’m trying to find the optimum way to express all that knowledge.

Potato obsessives will be pleased to hear of yet another tater dish launching this month in London: a chip butty which, we’re told, is “absolutely bonkers delicious.” Expect warm pita, buttered on both walls of the pita, aioli on one side, then fresh skinny fries, pickles, and Champagne vinegar.

Folder Burger with a Golden Crown of English Cheddar

This dish was created originally for New York. Shani aims to encapsulate every city he opens Miznon in in a pita unique to that city. For him, the burger is New York. It’s quite different from a burger, in actuality, the patty flattened, the cheese sizzled on the plancha. Nevertheless, it has many a customer declaring it the best burger they’ve ever had. The chefs use a tortilla press to flatten the patty, so it cooks as quickly as possible. It’s rare in a fast casual set-up for everything to be cooked to order. It means speed is of the essence, hence an obsession with shapes and surface areas.

A Whole Feast that Paints On Your Table

A sharing dish that Shani was initially serving on a piece of cardboard, apparently. Miznon’s chefs are allowed to get creative with this one. It’s a base of hummus on a large metal tray, on top of which is a tumble of falafel, charred onions, grilled tomatoes, grilled chillies, olive oil, and spicy sauce. It comes with pita. That it’s “painted” is a reference to the artistry of each individual chef who can serve it their own way. No two chefs plate it the same.

This signature dish is in keeping with the hands-on, knife and fork free approach. “Food is about passion,” says Shani. “If I’m passionate about my food, I want you to be completely open, completely free, that there will be no filters between you and my creation, between you and my food. I love to see you eating with your hands. I love to see the olive oil drizzling. I’m doing it from love and from feeling very close to my food. I cannot stand it when it’s become formal.”

Miznon Soho and Miznon Notting Hill are open now. Make a reservation at Miznon Soho here. 

Hilary Armstrong is a London-based journalist and editor. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter. Follow Resy, too.