{"id":77571,"date":"2025-05-05T22:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T22:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/77571\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T22:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T22:30:14","slug":"this-central-london-restaurant-is-turning-kosher-for-one-night-only-the-jewish-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/77571\/","title":{"rendered":"This central London restaurant is turning kosher for one night only – The Jewish Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keeping kosher: Arroz’s chefs will be supervised by Kehillas Federation[Missing Credit]<\/a> <\/p>\n

Prior to having her children (now ages six and three)\u00a0the mother-of-two worked in public relations as well as in events management. Having eaten\u00a0at non-kosher restaurants and well\u00a0aware of what she felt she and other kashrut-keeping diners are missing out on. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the food, but also the experience of getting dressed up and going into central London \u2014 the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She focussed on finding a critically acclaimed non-kosher restaurant willing to offer her and other observant eaters a flavour of their mainstream menu. Discussions with one of London\u2019s Israeli restaurants tailed off just before Rosh Hashanah and she started to lose belief that it was going to happen. \u201cI was telling a friend over the chagim, how I was struggling with what\u00a0I was trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

She discovered that the friend \u2014 also religious \u2014 worked in the restaurant property world. Three days later he had connected her with fine-dining Spanish restaurant Arroz QD. \u201cI sat down with them on erev Yom Kippur and there was an immediate synergy. I felt a real affinity with the manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, she had contacted the Federation\u2019s kosher licensing body, Kehillas Federation<\/a>. \u201cI knew we\u2019d need their support if we were going to make this happen. And I wanted to work with them as I knew their hescher would be accepted by all members of the community. I wanted this to be as inclusive as possible in terms of kashrut.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says they were hugely supportive and that the rabbi she has been working with \u2014 Rabbi Dendoravic \u2014 has taken a very can-do attitude, working with her to enable a restaurant with a menu that\u2019s normally filled with non-kosher dishes to produce a fully approved menu up to its normal culinary standard.<\/p>\n

So how does a mainstream meaty restaurant convert its menu (and kitchens) for an observant audience? She admits it has involved more than she had anticipated.<\/p>\n

Signature dish: meat rice[Missing Credit]<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cThe restaurant will be using new pans as well as new crockery and cutlery. The kitchen will be koshered after the restaurant finishes Saturday night service \u2014 when Shabbat has gone out. The Rabbi has said they can use the ovens if what is being cooked is double wrapped and he has devised a way of using the fires they cook over\u00a0if the pans sit on chicken wire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, Arroz QD\u2019s executive chef Eduardo Adrobo says he is excited about the project. \u201cI love the idea for our business and as a way of reaching people who would not usually come to the restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a steep learning curve in kashrut for him and his team: \u201cI\u2019d done kosher events as a private chef, but they weren\u2019t as strict as this \u2014 I had no idea how much was involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and Nissim visited north London supermarket Kosher Kingdom to find approved alternatives to the ingredients he uses ordinarily. Sharing the products\u00a0via a shared WhatsApp group allowed\u00a0Rabbi Dendarovic to give\u00a0the products a thumbs up or down. \u201cI was amazed that even some products sold in a kosher supermarket were not approved for use\u201d says Adrobo.<\/p>\n

Nissim’s serious about sharing kosher food[Missing Credit]<\/a> <\/p>\n

So how did they choose the menu? \u201cWe went through their existing menu \u2014 I wanted to keep it as close to their original offer as possible. What\u00a0I didn’t want was for it to be like a kosher catered event in somebody’s restaurant. I really wanted\u00a0people to have\u00a0the experience of going to the non-kosher restaurant and experiencing the authentic food.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main event will be the restaurant\u2019s signature dish \u2014 beef rice, which is\u00a0a meaty paella topped with a Tomahawk steak for larger groups or rib eye for tables of two. It arrives at the table in huge pans to be shared family-style, served with bread and alioli (garlic sauce). Vegetarians will be offered a meat-free option with mushrooms which he is still perfecting with his kosher supplies.<\/p>\n

Before that is a choice of either tuna tataki [seared tuna] \u2014 the restaurant is also known for its Japanese fusion food;\u00a0beef carpaccio or\u00a0a kale salad, with a citrussy tamarillo-based dressing \u2014 another signature dish.<\/p>\n

Adrobo is\u00a0still finalising the detail with the approved ingredients and working with kosher wine suppliers on the cava that\u2019s included on arrival and the other (mevushal) wines that will be available to buy on the night.<\/p>\n

Meat will\u00a0be\u00a0supplied by London kosher butchers\u00a0Shefa Mehadrin, who will also be cooking\u00a0the meat stocks\u00a0essential for the paella. These are ordinarily supplied from their Spanish kitchens. There were also time issues with making them in the restaurant\u2019s kitchen in the time they will have once kashered.<\/p>\n

Adrobo says he is used to providing dairy-free\/vegan desserts so has not found that the sweet course to be problem. \u201cIt\u2019s still being planned but we already do an amazing plant-based pineapple \u2018drunk cake\u2019 and coconut sorbet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without having eaten at Arroz, how could Nissim know what she was getting? \u201cSeveral of my friends have tasted it and spoken very highly of the food there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tickets will be \u00a3150 per head including the glass of cava and a five-course meal. Nissim says they are selling well. \u201cMore than 100 seats have already been reserved which is amazing and shows there literally is an appetite for this\u201d she smiles. The\u00a0restaurant\u2019s 155 seats are divided\u00a0between the downstairs dining room \u2014 where there are views of the open fires over which\u00a0the pans of paella are cooked in the traditional way \u2014 plus a more private upstairs area.<\/p>\n

If this night is a success Nissim is hopeful that she can repeat it at Arroz and extend it to\u00a0other venues. \u201cI just think that, as a community, if we want to be encouraging people to become religious and to take their Judaism seriously, then we have to make kosher\u00a0accessible for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find more information and booking details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keeping kosher: Arroz’s chefs will be supervised by Kehillas Federation[Missing Credit] Prior to having her children (now ages…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,9913,38036,36428,257,38037,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-77571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-kosher","12":"tag-kosher-london","13":"tag-kosher-restaurant","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-london-restaurant","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114457596827895772","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}