In Israel, Assaf Granit cannot cross the street unrecognized. He is a star there with his own TV shows and lucrative advertising contracts, who has to sign autographs and pose for selfies. Granit laid the foundations for his success in Jerusalem, his home town. In the modern west of the Israeli capital, the chef runs one of the country's most popular restaurants: "Machneyuda", named after the famous food market just a street corner away. The atmosphere in the two-storey restaurant is vibrant and frenetic, the music as loud as at a party even at midday. The tables are close together and offer a view of the hustle and bustle in the open kitchen.

"We want food to be fun," says Granit. There is no fixed menu at "Machneyuda", the offer is radically seasonal and is adapted every day to the assortment of the local market people. When the restaurant opened its doors in 2009, there was no comparable concept anywhere in the country. On the very first day, the number of guests was so high that the food and crockery ran out. Out of necessity, Granit scraped together everything he could find in a hurry - corn semolina, butter, cream, a few leftover mushrooms and Parmesan cheese - and improvised a kind of polenta in no time at all, which he served in preserving jars because they were the only thing he had left. Today, this spontaneous invention is his trademark.

Beginnings as a barista

A lot has happened since then too: Granit has created an empire of 14 restaurants in just a few years. Three of them are within a radius of just 50 meters of the "Machneyuda". The others are in London, Paris and, since last year, also in Berlin: the "Berta", named after his German grandmother.

Despite Tel Aviv 's reputation as a Mecca of indulgence, Assaf Granit is the only one who has kept his home in the city. never considered Tel Aviv as a location for his expansion plans. "Tel Aviv is too small and already full of chefs," he waves it away. And there is a kind of glass ceiling hovering over Israel. It was clear to him: "If I want to reach for the stars, I have to get out of here." Three years ago, he proved just how right he was. Since then, his Parisian restaurant "Shabour" has had a Michelin star. An impossibility in Israel. For the simple reason that the famous restaurant guide does not yet award any prizes there - even though this is set to change in the near future.

So far, Granit is still a rarity as a star chef due to his Israeli citizenship. He is also one of the few people in the world without proper training as a chef. He rather stumbled into the restaurant business. "I was 20, had just completed my military service and I needed money." He found a temporary job as a barista in a bistro. One day, he was called into the kitchen to fill in for a chef who was out of work. "You've got a bowl there," he was told. "Put salad in it. Put sauce on it. And when you've mixed everything once, ring the bell." He then watched as the waitress took his salad outside and the guest smiled broadly as he tasted it. "Really?" he thought to himself at the time. "I've just made someone laugh within 30 seconds and I'm getting paid for it?" From then on, he wanted nothing more than to cook.

Culinary heritage

Today, he sees his lack of training as a chef as his greatest asset: "Because I don't have any traditional vocational training, there are no dogmas for me. This has helped me a lot to find my own style." And this can best be described as wild mixing and reinterpretation describe: Matzo dumplingsa Jewish specialty made from unsalted flatbread, can be found as a garnish in his Mediterranean seafood soup. Kugel, a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish that resembles a casserole in its preparation, is reinterpreted by Granit as a vegan version made from cabbage leaves with a Jägermeister-based sauce. He fills his Polish grandmother's kreplach with parmesan and combines it with beer foam.

What some may perceive as a wild mix of styles is actually a consistent further development of his home cuisine, which in itself is a hodgepodge, simply because of Israel's origins. Granit's own family history bears witness to this: his ancestors fled to Israel at the beginning of the Second World War, his mother's side of the family came from Germany and his father's ancestors came from Poland. "They all had their recipes with them and added regional ingredients and newly learned recipes in their new home country," Granit explains. "The lady next door was born in Morocco and taught my grandmother how to use saffron. Another came from Yemen and explained to her how to make malawach. In the USA, all the different ethnic groups mostly live in their own neighborhoods. That's not possible in small Israel," explains the chef. Everything mixes together. This creates fantastic products and a unique culinary language. "We Israelis still draw on this wealth today."

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