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The Renée and Lester Crown Speaker Series

Jewish and Israeli Cuisine and Culture: A Conversation with Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook

Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook are the co-owners of the nationally beloved, trailblazing Philadelphia hospitality group CookNSolo, and champions of Israel's extraordinarily diverse and vibrant culinary landscape.  Together, they have been awarded three James Beard Foundation Awards, with Mike awarded two additional Beard Awards for his work as Chef of Zahav, which includes "Outstanding Chef", 2017.  Zahav, their restaurant that put the rich melting pot of Israeli cuisine at the forefront of dining in America today, became in 2019 the first Israeli and first Philadelphia restaurant to win the James Beard "Outstanding Restaurant" Award.  In 2018, Zahav was recognized by Food & Wine Magazine as one of "The 40 Most Important Restaurants of the Past 40 Years".  Their seven other restaurants include the Israeli-style hummusiya Dizengoff, the kosher falafel shop Goldie, the Israeli bakery K’Far, the Israeli sandwich shop Merkaz, and Abe Fisher, which serves contemporary takes on old-world Ashkenazi Jewish cooking. Their most recent restaurant Laser Wolf, an Israeli skewer house (shipudiya), opened last year, and was named a GQ Magazine "Best New Restaurant in America", 2020.  The duo has also co-authored three highly acclaimed cookbooks — Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, Federal Donuts: The (Partially) True Spectacular Story, and Israeli Soul: Easy, Essential, Delicious.