At the end of his 13-hour workday, Hidehiko Egata takes a seat at the bar at his regular eatery in this city’s upscale Shibuya neighborhood. Sipping sake and nibbling on traditional Japanese pickles, he chats with the owner in Japanese.
Then he orders his usual dish: hummus topped with warm chickpeas, tahini and olive oil.
“I first ate hummus a few years ago,” said Egata, a senior adviser at a Tokyo financial firm. “I found that it was more healthy than my usual dinners then. It was filling, but it didn’t make me tired the way a noodle dish would. When this place opened, it became my regular spot.”
This place is Ta-im, a 16-seater that is one of no fewer than eight Israeli restaurants to open in Japan in the past five years, serving up hummus and other Middle Eastern staples to the novelty-oriented and health-obsessed urban elite. In January, the Chabad House in Tokyo joined the trend when it opened Chana’s Place — the city’s only kosher certified restaurant. It serves hummus, shakshouka, matbucha and other popular Israeli dishes.
“The urban population in Japan only recently became exposed to real international cuisine beyond the obvious dishes like spaghetti, pizza and hamburgers,” said Israeli businessman Dan Zuckerman, 54, who moved to Tokyo in 1985 and ran a deli before he opened Ta-im in 2011. “Now they are discovering the more exotic foods like Mexican, Portuguese and Greek.”
Dan Zuckerman (second from left) at his Tokyo restaurant, Ta-im photo/jta-cnaan lipshiz
As new foreign restaurants open in Japan — Taco Bell announced its entry to the island nation in January — Middle Eastern food enjoys an advantage because of its reliance on fresh vegetables and other lean substances, according to Rabbi Binyomin Edery, a Tokyo-based Chabad rabbi who supervises King Falafel, a kosher food stand.
“In a city where the population is so health conscious that about a third of them regularly wear surgeon masks whenever they go out, a lean, fiber-rich food that’s full of vitamins is going to have a serious advantage compared to fat-dripping tacos,” Edery said. “Israeli food is becoming super trendy in this country, and hummus is leading the charge because people here are already used to the idea of bean paste from their local food. It just fits.”
Chana’s Place, housed in the Tokyo Chabad, can accommodate only 14 diners at a time. The restaurant’s profits fund activities for Tokyo’s Jewish community of a few hundred people.
“If this restaurant is to succeed, it needs to appeal to the Japanese public,” said Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich, Chabad’s envoy to Japan. “The Jewish, kosher-observing community is too small to sustain this business.”
Unlike Ta-im, which feels like a typical Tel Aviv hummus bar, Chana’s Place has a Japanese design, including a tiny Japanese garden.
While hummus is typically scooped up with pita, the Japanese cut the pita and make tiny hummus sandwiches.
Roy Somech, a 33-year-old Israeli who last year opened his second restaurant in Sendai, 220 miles north of Tokyo, takes a different approach. Somech believes in totally immersing his patrons not only in the Israeli experience, but that of the entire Middle East.
“When you come to our restaurants you find three flags: Israel, Turkey and Tunisia,” Somech said. “There’s Arab and Israeli music, there’s hookahs — all the fun stuff of the Middle East and Israel that many Japanese don’t know because they only hear of terrorism and bombs from that part of the world.”
Only one bakery in all of Japan makes pita — an operation set up a decade ago by Israeli entrepreneur Amnon Agasy. But while fresh pita is available, white tahini, the sesame spread that is a key ingredient of hummus, must be specially imported. Thus, a 31⁄2-oz. portion of hummus sells in Japan for about $6.
“There’s demand for hummus, sure,” said Somech, who opened his first restaurant, Middle Mix, five years ago.
But, he added, in a country where even cheap street food is expected to meet strict standards, and whose capital city has more Michelin stars than Paris, “competition is very, very tough.”
In Japan, hummus and Israeli cuisine are getting their moment in the sun | j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California
Then he orders his usual dish: hummus topped with warm chickpeas, tahini and olive oil.
“I first ate hummus a few years ago,” said Egata, a senior adviser at a Tokyo financial firm. “I found that it was more healthy than my usual dinners then. It was filling, but it didn’t make me tired the way a noodle dish would. When this place opened, it became my regular spot.”
This place is Ta-im, a 16-seater that is one of no fewer than eight Israeli restaurants to open in Japan in the past five years, serving up hummus and other Middle Eastern staples to the novelty-oriented and health-obsessed urban elite. In January, the Chabad House in Tokyo joined the trend when it opened Chana’s Place — the city’s only kosher certified restaurant. It serves hummus, shakshouka, matbucha and other popular Israeli dishes.
“The urban population in Japan only recently became exposed to real international cuisine beyond the obvious dishes like spaghetti, pizza and hamburgers,” said Israeli businessman Dan Zuckerman, 54, who moved to Tokyo in 1985 and ran a deli before he opened Ta-im in 2011. “Now they are discovering the more exotic foods like Mexican, Portuguese and Greek.”
Dan Zuckerman (second from left) at his Tokyo restaurant, Ta-im photo/jta-cnaan lipshiz
As new foreign restaurants open in Japan — Taco Bell announced its entry to the island nation in January — Middle Eastern food enjoys an advantage because of its reliance on fresh vegetables and other lean substances, according to Rabbi Binyomin Edery, a Tokyo-based Chabad rabbi who supervises King Falafel, a kosher food stand.
“In a city where the population is so health conscious that about a third of them regularly wear surgeon masks whenever they go out, a lean, fiber-rich food that’s full of vitamins is going to have a serious advantage compared to fat-dripping tacos,” Edery said. “Israeli food is becoming super trendy in this country, and hummus is leading the charge because people here are already used to the idea of bean paste from their local food. It just fits.”
Chana’s Place, housed in the Tokyo Chabad, can accommodate only 14 diners at a time. The restaurant’s profits fund activities for Tokyo’s Jewish community of a few hundred people.
“If this restaurant is to succeed, it needs to appeal to the Japanese public,” said Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich, Chabad’s envoy to Japan. “The Jewish, kosher-observing community is too small to sustain this business.”
Unlike Ta-im, which feels like a typical Tel Aviv hummus bar, Chana’s Place has a Japanese design, including a tiny Japanese garden.
While hummus is typically scooped up with pita, the Japanese cut the pita and make tiny hummus sandwiches.
Roy Somech, a 33-year-old Israeli who last year opened his second restaurant in Sendai, 220 miles north of Tokyo, takes a different approach. Somech believes in totally immersing his patrons not only in the Israeli experience, but that of the entire Middle East.
“When you come to our restaurants you find three flags: Israel, Turkey and Tunisia,” Somech said. “There’s Arab and Israeli music, there’s hookahs — all the fun stuff of the Middle East and Israel that many Japanese don’t know because they only hear of terrorism and bombs from that part of the world.”
Only one bakery in all of Japan makes pita — an operation set up a decade ago by Israeli entrepreneur Amnon Agasy. But while fresh pita is available, white tahini, the sesame spread that is a key ingredient of hummus, must be specially imported. Thus, a 31⁄2-oz. portion of hummus sells in Japan for about $6.
“There’s demand for hummus, sure,” said Somech, who opened his first restaurant, Middle Mix, five years ago.
But, he added, in a country where even cheap street food is expected to meet strict standards, and whose capital city has more Michelin stars than Paris, “competition is very, very tough.”
In Japan, hummus and Israeli cuisine are getting their moment in the sun | j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California
