I first spoke to Rotem Papo three years ago when he was head chef at L’Hotel Gitan. Since then he has been head chef at Bar Lourinha and now he is at Golda which he co-owns with Adam Faigen of Gramercy Social fame. As on the previous occasion, Rotem showed his absolute love of hospitality by offering me a glass of wine and a selection of the baktana, or small bites, which they had just put on the menu that day. Usually as I’m writing up my conversations, I look out for the gems the chefs say to use as a pull quote to break up the middle of the written version. Rotem came out with so much greatness that the whole transcript should really be highlighted. It is obvious that he loves what he does and now at Golda is finally able to share the food from his childhood with a very lucky Melbourne dining public.
How’s it going, Rotem, it’s obviously really busy and all happening at once?
Yes it’s really crazy. We started about a month and a half ago, just doing takeaway and delivery. I was stood down from work…I was head chef at Bar Lourinha. Adam and I, that’s my business partner, started to talk maybe a year ago about the possibility of opening an Israeli restaurant. He’d had the idea in his head for a few years and he was looking for an Israeli chef for quite some time until he found me though you actually.
Oh really? I love that.
Yes, so thank you for that. He was looking for an Israeli chef and I popped up on Conversation with a chef. We started speaking and we were looking for a venue but we didn’t find anything at the time…luckily…because of what is happening now, otherwise we would be in a totally different situation. Then Covid started, I got stood down from Bar Lourinha, and Adam’s business, Gramercy Social which is really reliant on Hotel Cullen so that when the hotel shut, the restaurant was pretty much shut as well. So we started talking and he said, let’s do something here and I said, why not? With the restrictions then we were only able to do delivery and takeaway so we started with that and it went well.
Did you start with the kind of food that you meant to continue with?
Yes.
It’s not street food, is it?
It’s not street food. I pretty much started with the food I really love; everything that I really wanted to show in terms of the food I grew up on, the food that I was used to eating at home and the food I really miss. Finally I can actually cook it exactly the way I want it, without trying to alter it to any other kind of cuisine that might fit into it; I’m Israeli and that’s what I do. That’s really great and very nice to be able to be at home, in that sense.
I was reading the Golda website and some other pieces…and congratulations on such a great Good Food write up and Broadsheet, amazing…that it is family food and it is influenced by your grandmothers. How easy is it to take that kind of food and put it into a restaurant setting? What do you have to do to make that work?
I think that my training as a chef over all of these years has really paid off in that sense. To take these flavours and ingredients and to be able to put them on a plate and make it Melbourne, in the sense that people get it and it’s not something that is too rustic or too other, too different. We were able to take those flavours and implement it in a Melbourne restaurant. That means in the way it looks, the way it feels, the way the service is, the wine service, the table service, the plating; all the things that make it presentable and more Melbourne. I want this to be a Melbourne restaurant. I don’t want it to be an Israeli restaurant…in the sense that people are going to come here and they’re not going to feel uncertain or that it's something that might not be for them; it looks like it’s for them. At the end of the day, what they are getting on their plate is Israeli, but for a Melburnian diner it is more approachable.
That’s interesting because I just read something and I think it was on SBS Food and it was a restaurateur, not from Melbourne, who was talking about 10 things he wish he’d know before opening and one of them was not to make the menu before you’ve got the setting because the setting influences the way you put the menu together. Would you agree with that or is that not quite the same?
Hmmm…not really. I think the food we do, we can do anywhere….look, in terms of me saying it’s a Melbourne restaurant, I want it to look nice and elegant and modern and approachable and clean and tidy and peaceful and the food aligns to that by the way it’s plated and presented. That is why we call ourselves Modern Israeli because we are creating the food using those flavours but presenting it in a way that is still us but also…this is still me, I’m not trying to be anything else. I love the way I do it; I don’t do it hoping that people will like it if I do it a certain way. This is something I really love to do but also making it approachable.
The Israeli way is when someone is coming to your house, you just welcome them and do whatever you can for them to make them feel comfortable.
Ok. And I didn’t know this, but there are different kinds of Israeli food and your business partner had an idea first of all and then you brought in an idea that comes more from your background and your background has more spice and Mediterranean flavours…is that right?
Not really. Well you are correct, but it was more that when he first approached me, he wanted to do a Jewish restaurant. You have what we call Jewish streams; Mizrahi and Ashkenazi. Mizrahi will be more like the Eastern part of the world that the Jews are coming from; Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, pretty much Middle eastern, Arabic countries and they will bring their own kind of food that is much more spicy and impactful on the flavour, a bit more oily and richer in flavour. Ashkenazi Jews are coming with food that is from Eastern Europe, so Germany and Poland and Austria so that type of food is schnitzel and strudel and dishes like these. And Jews with the restrictions they have with kosher food, they will alter it to their way. One of the best examples with Eastern European Jews from Germany is that in Ashkenazi cuisine there is something called schmaltz, which is chicken fat. They were really jealous of the pork fat that all of the non-Jewish people were having all around them so they created something they could actually have. So that created a whole different cuisine. That was his idea; to create that in a restaurant.
But where I came from, it’s wider for me because I can see it as Israeli. Israeli cuisine encases all of that plus being in the Middle East plus getting all the other food that has been developed as part of Israeli cuisine. A lot of people say they don’t really know what Israeli cuisine is. I think it’s a lot like Australian cuisine; no one really knows exactly what it is. Israel, in the same sense as Australia, is a melting pot for a whole lot of cultures. A lot of Jews come from all over the world plus there are Arabs living in Israel and they bring in their influence as well. So many cultures bring in their own food and they are then developed in Israel. For example, falafel is seen as Israel’s national dish but Egyptians will say, no that is ours and Lebanese will say, no it’s ours. For me, it’s everyone’s.
That makes it easy for menu changes because you have so much to choose from.
Yes. I’m just going to give you a little taste.
You are always spot on with hospitality, aren’t you?
The Israeli way is when someone is coming to your house, you just welcome them and do whatever you can for them to make them feel comfortable.
What have we got here?
This is a new section on the menu that we are opening tonight. We wanted to offer full à la carte but with the restrictions, we had to delay it. We have a set menu and then this is a new section we are offering now for drinkers; it is what we call baktana. Baktana means little or small and it’s also slang for no worries, don’t worry about it.
So for Baktana or small bites we have samboosak; a prawn and rockling pastry, deep-fried and served with a dill yoghurt. It’s the Iraqi version of a samosa. You have the … from Iraq, the sambosak from Egypt, samosas from India and sambusa from Ethiopia. Everyone is doing this same kind of thing but the samboosak is something you find in Israel that is quite Israeli.
What was the word I read in the Broadsheet article that means ‘your table is covered’, in the feasting sense?
Liftoach shulchan; to open the table. This is the thing; the hospitality, when people come into your house and you put a lot of different things on the table and really make them feel like they are so welcome.
What should I start with?
Just go for it. There is the Za’atar cured salmon, which is like gravlax but cured with za’atar. Za’atar is Syrian oregano and a mix of spices like sumac and sesame seeds. That’s on a crispy pretzel and finished with some olive oil and our labne. We have our mini pita with felafel. We make everything here, so we make the mini pita, housemade felafel, and amba aioli. Amba is a fermented mango sauce from Iraq, India; so those kind of flavours: curry powder, fenugreek and some Israeli pickles in there as well. Then then we have the Kubeniya; lamb tartare, a Lebanese version. It has burghul in it, and we made a date and pistachio salsa and it’s sitting between two potato crisps. And grilled chicken shishlik which is chicken on a skewer marinated in spices sitting on a lentil and tahini puree and finished with some pickled cabbage.
Wow. People will love that. I do love the idea of a set menu. When I was in France a long time ago, I loved going to places and there was only the set menu and you have what the chef wants you to have. Do you have choices within the courses?
No. You would think so looking at the menu. But you get everything there.
People are into that now; allowing the chef to feed them.
We started with this because of the corona restrictions but also this is a great way for us to get people to see everything. So it starts with what we call Salatim, or salads, so a whole range of different dips and salads and different flavours. That’s how we start a meal in Israel, in my family. We fill up the table with this; liftoach shulchan. That all comes with the laffa bread; a soft and fluffy flat bread. Then after they finish that and we fill the table with the mains; snapper and then beef cheek.
And you have a special dessert as well.
Yes, Malabi, a traditional Middle Eastern dessert. Cream thickened with cornflour and then the normal kind of syrup we do in Israel is a simple syrup with rose flower and a red coloured dye. It’s a classic. I don’t use dyes.
Do you colour it using something else?
I’ve done an orange colour using citrus; an orange, cardamom, orange blossom and honey and I reduce that a little bit for a syrup.
Your ideas come from your childhood food and what you’ve been missing, but how do you get from that idea through to these? Do you also have to read widely or are they all ideas in your head?
There are a lot of different things. It can be in my head; it can be something I thought of ages ago as well. I could be going through a book and ideas will come. Everything; life…I can read a cooking book, see something online, something that I want to recreate from my childhood. There are a lot of different things. I think if you just go for one element of how you process your dishes, it’s very limited so you need to have more perspectives of how you get into a dish because there are a lot of different influences you can use to get a final product.
I still have a lot to learn and any chef that thinks they know everything is never going to be a great chef. If you come to a point where you think you don’t need to learn anything, you’re going to be stagnant. Yes I’m doing well and I really want to do well, but I’m never going to be relaxed about and be, oh you’re good. I’m always pushing and I always want to be better and I always want to have other ideas. I’m always in a constant chase for more and more and more.
When I spoke to you last, you mentioned about having done your military service and being in the navy and so on which meant that when you decided you wanted to become a chef, you felt older than the other chefs who had started much earlier. But you have really caught up now, haven’t you?
I guess. I still have a lot to learn and any chef that thinks they know everything is never going to be a great chef. If you come to a point where you think you don’t need to learn anything, you’re going to be stagnant. Yes I’m doing well and I really want to do well, but I’m never going to be relaxed about and be, oh you’re good. I’m always pushing and I always want to be better and I always want to have other ideas. I’m always in a constant chase for more and more and more.
[Adam Faigen arrives and comes over]
This is Adam, my partner. Adam, this is Jo from Conversation with a chef; she is our founder.
Adam: I went through every single conversation looking for somebody. I spent many months looking but that was how I found Rotem and the funny thing was, he was working 200 metres down the road the whole time. Thanks for that, you’re a key person without even knowing it.
It’s my absolute pleasure. I wanted to ask you about the name, Golda. Is it named after the Prime Minister?
Adam: It wasn’t named after her directly. I wanted a name that, as someone Jewish or Israeli, they could make a connection and for someone non-Jewish, there’s not necessarily a connection…a lot of restaurants have Israeli names or something obviously Jewish and I didn’t want that. The whole thing about Golda is connecting beyond our community and the other thing is that Golda was always about our grandmothers. That was the food we had grown up on. Golda is a female name and can represent anyone’s grandmother and the name sounds good as well. We had someone in last night, an older guy maybe in his seventies and he said his grandmother’s name was Golda. It’s not the first time we’ve heard that. The name has been really good for us; people have resonated with it.
Rotem: When we first started talking, our backgrounds are really pretty similar. I’m from Israel and he’s from Australia but the food we grew up on and the culture we had from both sides of our families was really similar.
Adam: We both have a mix of East and West. Rotem is Moroccan and Bulgarian and my family were Iraqi and Polish. In the Jewish world there are two types of regional Jews; Ashkenazi who are Eastern European and…oh has Rotem explained that? So we come half and half. For us the food we are cooking is normal food, but for people coming in, they haven’t eaten like this. For us this is the stuff we grew up on every day. It’s so natural for us but everyone is excited by it. It’s well executed, obviously.
Well, Congratulations. Lovely to meet you…Now to get back to you, Rotem, feeling more confident but always wanting to learn more, and it sounds as though you have high standards for yourself, how does that translate when you’re telling your team what you want?
It’s exactly the same. I push them in the same way as I push myself. I expect anyone who is working with me to push themselves in the same way. I surround myself with people who are like that. I say to every single chef I hire that attitude is the most important thing for me. If you have a good attitude, I can work with you. I’ve worked with a lot of different people and when I finally got the chance to be able to choose, it was very important for me to have people who have high standards for themselves and for the food they present. I don’t want chefs who look at being a chef as a job; I want chefs to look at it as their identity and their career as something they are proud of and want to grow and develop and be better. I’m like that and I want everybody around me to be the same. In this way we will be able to present really good food and we can have fun doing it.
Do you feel nervous in the kitchen when you’re in the middle of service and it’s really busy or is it a joy or somewhere between the two?
I will be more nervous before service starts and when it starts, I’m more cool, calm and collected. The anticipation is the thing I am always wary about but when things are happening. I’m really in it. I really hate saying good things about myself, but I think I’m a good manager, so I’m calm in the moment.
This is so delicious. It’s so soft…
I like my felafel like this. I like it crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. There are a lot of falafel that are grainy…
And dry.
And dry, yes. I’m glad you like it.
I love it and I can’t wait to come back and have all of the food. Thank you for all of this. Amazing.
Thank you for coming.
162-164 Commercial Road, Prahran