Itamar When we first met, it was quite loose. Neither of us ever thought we’d be in a relationship or get married.
Sarit We met in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant near Tel Aviv, where I was sous chef. Our first impressions of each other were not good. He used to come into work very late and he was super-messy. I’d just got back from working at a Michelin-star restaurant in London and I could not stand the way he was. I was very career-oriented and I did not ever want to have anything to do with a chef – I’d had a bad experience in London. Male chefs are usually horrible – macho, sexist.
Itamar It’s a bad idea to date a chef. Always a bad idea.
Sarit I really fought against it but Itamar was very persistent.
Itamar We’ve changed each other. I don’t think I would have moved to London and started a restaurant if I hadn’t met Sarit.
Sarit He’s taught me loads about relaxing and enjoying life, and also about taking risks. We say it all the time: if I’ve added stability and organisation to Itamar’s life, then he’s added a laissez-faire approach to mine – remembering that we need to live as well as work. I didn’t really have that before.
Sarit Running a restaurant together allows us to combine our strengths. Upstairs is mostly Itamar’s domain because he’s better at talking with customers, whereas I’m usually downstairs doing the admin. And then we split the kitchen. It’s much better having two people tasting dishes and being brutally honest about it than doing it on your own and thinking your food is amazing.
Itamar We’re not people who take well to criticism from outside, but we can be quite honest and harsh with each other, because we’re in it together and ultimately pushing for the same thing.
Sarit It’s one of the main reasons we ended up starting our own restaurant. Even if we fight quite angrily at times, we know we want the same end results – to have the best dish, the best customer experience, the best working environment. A good example: Itamar wanted to change the bar upstairs to a tiny corner so we could spread the tables out a bit more, but the reality is you cannot work from that tiny space. We argued about this forever and finally changed it in a way that did add a little bit of space. My instinct would have been to just leave it the way it is.
Itamar It’s often a case of being devil’s advocate when we argue.
Sarit We might even agree on something at the start and then argue about it for three days until we reach exactly the same conclusion.
Itamar But it’s important – and more enjoyable – to have a bit of …
Sarit … a tiff about something. We prefer to really let it out. We’re not very English in that aspect. You build up a lot of anger and anxiety and it explodes in a much worse way, whereas we explode every day – it’s more workable like that I think. It also helps to have a language that no one else in the kitchen speaks. For a long time, we didn’t want to hire anyone Israeli because they would understand our arguments.
Itamar In a way I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else – a friend or a business partner. You have to be pretty close to make it work.
Sarit The mistakes we’ve made have mostly been about dealing with other people. In the beginning, because we usually have different opinions on things, we would deliver conflicting messages [to staff]. We had to learn to have conversations together so both opinions could come out at the same time.
Itamar You think, “Oh, it’s my restaurant, I’ll do it how I want.” But you need to pause and say, “Okay, I’ll take it up with her and we’ll see.” With the food, especially, we try to talk to each other before we talk to the kids.
Sarit We call the team our kids and a lot of them call us mummy and daddy. It’s a joke but it’s also a serious thing. We do care what’s happening in their private lives, that they’re OK, that they’re healthy. And it’s very hard for us when someone moves on. We have abandonment issues.
Itamar They stab us in the heart.
Sarit He says to them, “You were at the top of your life with us, now it all goes downhill.” [Laughs]
Itamar In a lot of ways, I think we do have our own family. It’s not the traditional mum, dad, kids and two-thirds of a dog, but it’s not any less of a family.
Sarit It’s important to remember we’re in charge. I don’t think you can leave it and see if it becomes some kind of beautiful commune, because it needs channelling, controlling. In a family, the mum and dad ultimately make the decisions that are for the best of the family, whether the others like it or not.
Itamar Even if everything goes tits up tomorrow, the important bit stays. We had fun before we opened the restaurant and we’ll have fun after.
Sarit And hopefully we’ll find fun things to do in-between.
Itamar There’s a lot of talk at the moment about work/life balance. People say you need to draw the line, but it’s quite an artificial separation. If you do something that you find enjoyable and satisfying, then this is your life, your fun time.
Sarit The separation is different when you’re in this industry. We can sit in the restaurant and have a nice time, or we can be at home working, testing a recipe, and it’s no less fun. We have this thing where we’ll go on a holiday, and for the first day we don’t want to talk about work, but then your head relaxes and you’ll think, oh, we should change this dish or install acoustic panels or something.
Itamar But I think we’re quite good at saying to each other, take the day off.
Sarit He just doesn’t want me to come in so he can change everything when I’m not there
