A Vegetarian Feast HaSalon Style

Only Eyal Shani could make vegetarian food this festive and fun.

The founding father of Israeli cuisine with 40 restaurants worldwide, including seven in New York City, Shani is passionate about fresh vegetables to say the least. In celebration of his love, Shani is showcasing a six-course vegetarian feast at his famous HaSalon NYC restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen from March 16 through April 22, 2023.

Dubbed “A Tale of Six Dishes,” the six-week menu line-up focuses on a single vegetable ingredient each week. At the helm of HaSalon NYC is the powerhouse female executive chef Orianne Shapira, who will be doing the actual cooking.

Shani, a vegetarian for five years, comes from a family of farmers and wants to make people change their perception about vegetarian cuisine.

Take the potato featured on the opening weekend: Shani boils the humble vegetable in fresh ricotta water- the ricotta is made in-house. Next up, the culinary team spends hours shaping the soft potatoes into diamonds. The end result is a dish that’s silky and decadent. Other dishes on the menu include the whimsically named Baby Potatoes That Nobody Cared About and Potatoes Filled with Herself. After this meal, your view on potatoes will forever be changed.

Moving on to baby beets, the menu star from March 23 to 26, and the Charred Beet Carpaccio, one of the featured six courses. The story here began at Shani’s home in Tel Aviv. He left a pot of beets boiling on the stove, and came home to find them burnt. Shani said, “they looked like a block of coal.” So, he went to bed and left it there.

The following day, Shani looked at the pot and touched the beets. They started to crumble. They were burnt from the outside, but the inside was the body of the beets, moist and delicious. Culinary inspiration struck.

He brought a crate of beets to HaSalon and asked the chefs to burn them. When they thought they were burned enough, he told them to keep the beets on longer still. In the end, the beets’ harmony prevailed with smokiness flavors on the outside and a moist taste in the center. This is true Shani style, always looking for the unexpected and bringing out the soul of the food.

“A Tale of Six Dishes” also will feature wild mushrooms, burnt eggplant, female zucchini, and the tomato, an ingredient he’s famous for with his $24 single tomato at HaSalon. “Food is to tell you where it came from, the people that took care of it, the sun, the soil, the taste it carries,” explains Shani. “The tomato encompasses all this; it’s a different energy, and from the beginning, it has to be its best and be fresh to be a divine food.”

You won’t want to miss “A Tale of Six Dishes” so book your reservations via Resy. Offered during the first seating from 5:30pm to 7:30pm and inclusive of six courses for $89 per person plus tax and gratuity. HaSalon is located in Hell’s Kitchen at 735 10th Avenue.