Eyal Shani, the Israeli chef who operates 13 restaurants in the United States and 12 in Israel, as well as others worldwide, is planning to take a page from Shakespeare’s “King Lear” in his new restaurant in Brooklyn, Naked Tomato, slated to open in mid-October.
“For the first time in my life, I’m dividing the restaurant into two sections,” the chef told JNS on a visit to the construction site, with the main elements of the 4,000-square-foot restaurant already taking shape on the wharf on the Williamsburg waterfront.
The name of the restaurant, which will not be kosher, reflects Shani’s philosophy. On its website, Naked Tomato describes its approach as “naked food,” where ingredients remain at the center.
Shani told JNS that when he started cooking professionally in the late 1980s, he did not like tomatoes and spent decades learning to understand them. He now considers them one of the most complex ingredients in cooking due to their combination of sweetness and acidity.
A good tomato can provide acidity without overwhelming other flavors in a dish—a balance Shani sees as the foundation of his cooking, in which he uses a small number of ingredients and lets each retain its character.
Part of that foundation is also a connection to Israel.
Shani wants the Israeli chefs working in his restaurants to maintain a relationship with the Jewish state. He told JNS that he encourages head chefs to return regularly to Israel, because he believes that working in the United States can gradually alter their approach to cooking.
His concern is what he calls “layers” between the diner and the ingredients.
“Butter is covering,” he told JNS. “It’s a layer between the food and you.”
The idea of “naked” food, he said, is about removing those layers and leaving ingredients exposed.
At the new restaurant in Brooklyn, a long, unusually wide bar is to serve as the centerpiece of the space, with diners seated directly alongside the kitchen. Unlike a typical bar, this will have its own menu of smaller dishes intended for those who want to stop in for a bite rather than a full meal.
The bar is one of the biggest changes from the Naked Tomato restaurant in Miami Beach, and Shani told JNS that he wants New Yorkers to have the option to come in, order a dish or a glass of wine and be able to leave without having a long or expensive commitment.
“I have to catch people,” he said. “I have to seduce people to see what’s inside without them feeling that they are going to spend a lot of money or a lot of their time.”
Shani and executive chef Victor Gothelf, who works at Shani’s Port Sa’id restaurant in Lower Manhattan, developed a new menu for the Brooklyn location based on local and seasonal ingredients.
Bar dishes will be smaller than those served at tables and will be prepared specifically for the setting. Shani called them “fractures” of his cooking rather than full versions of better-known dishes.
“You are not getting the full experience,” he told JNS. “You are getting the energy and the frequency of that food.”
The table service dishes, intended to be shared, include pastas and pizzas designed for the center of the table. There will be a communal table that can seat up to 12, in addition to smaller tables and another larger fixed table.
A potential DJ station will also be incorporated into the restaurant in the design by the Israeli firm Kimmel Eshkolot Architects. More Gelfand, a partner and New York director for the firm, worked on the project.
Gelfand told JNS that the team began with what was essentially an empty, 21-foot-tall space and wanted to preserve some of its existing character rather than cover it with layers of new materials.
The original floor will remain, along with concrete columns and high ceilings. The design incorporates shades of red inspired by tomatoes and greenery that will fill portions of the space.
Gelfand told JNS that efforts were made to combine the “raw” building with clean, contemporary details. Once construction is complete, large windows will open the restaurant toward the waterfront and surrounding park.
The tomato theme, which also characterized the Miami location of the restaurant, will extend throughout the restaurant, including the bathroom and shelving that will display ingredients and other objects.
Shani told JNS that as part of his approach, he tries to avoid what he sees as unnecessary barriers between chef, food and customer.
That is one reason he does not offer takeout at his restaurants in Israel or Miami and won’t in New York either, he said. “When you are delivering your food to go, that’s another life,” Shani said. “The food is dying in the journey.”
He also does not like having too many layers of service between him and the diner.
“No waitress,” he said of the food bar. “It’s end to end.”
For Shani, the interaction between the diner and the chef—or the person serving the food—is part of the cooking process. He believes the exchange at the table, including a diner’s reaction to the food, can shape how a dish evolves during service.
“There is a menu, but then there is the reaction between you and the customer,” he said. “That reaction makes you create.”
For Shani, that reaction isn’t necessarily a customer offering a critique or asking for a change. It is the exchange that happens when food moves from the kitchen to the table, sometimes with Shani serving it and other times one of his chefs doing so. And then diners respond to what is in front of them.
He sees that interaction as part of the creative process itself.
The Brooklyn restaurant is also an opportunity for Shani to move away from some of the dishes that have become associated with him over the years.
“I made many classics, because I have to run away from myself,” he told JNS. “So many people were happy with my creations that they started copying them, and then, somehow, they called me the one who was copying.”
Shani said that continuing to create requires forgetting what came before.
“If you want to live all your life and continue to invent, you cannot carry the weight of the past,” he said. “It will confuse you.”
That process has been part of his work with Gothelf, who has spent weeks working closely with Shani on the new restaurant.
Shani described the collaboration as an intensive process involving cooking, experimenting, visiting markets, dining together and discussing music and books.
“I’m stamping my mind into his mind,” Shani said.
But he said the goal is not for Gothelf to reproduce his cooking exactly. Instead, Shani wants him to develop his own interpretation of the food.
“I’m letting him do it according to his ability, his imagination,” Shani said.
Shani also wants his chefs to take risks.
“I want to put my chefs at a huge risk,” Shani said, “that they will feel that they can fail any minute of the service.”
For Shani, that uncertainty is intentional. Repeating the same dishes in the same way may be safer, but it can also make cooking predictable. “If you are repeating and replicating, it’s safe,” he said.
Whether Brooklyn diners are ready for that approach doesn’t particularly concern Shani.
“I really don’t care,” he said, when asked whether he thinks American diners are ready for the restaurant.
After a decade of operating restaurants in New York, Shani said that he believes the chef has to make the decisions.
“There is no democracy with food,” he said.
