The journey from chef Eric Greenspan calls “dystopia to diaspora” will culminate on Tuesday, June 2, when he opens a new Jewish deli. not In Los Angeles.
“Opening Misch is a public service,” Greenspan tells the Observer. “People want to build the library so young children can read. It’s the same thing with mish, but it’s pastrami.”
Greenspan has had a long career that has spanned fine dining, ghost kitchens, and more recently Tesla restaurantBut Mish feels completely different from everything he’s done before.
“What I did reflected my creativity and training, but it never reflected my heritage,” Greenspan says. “This is an opportunity to do something with my heritage.”
It is an opportunity to reflect, honor, pay tribute, expand, and create something new.
“This place is not going to look like the Lower East Side’s version of Epcot Center,” Greenspan says. “This is not homage. This is progress. This is evolution. What was really important was that I wanted to talk about the entire diaspora community. Mesh is not just an Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant. Jewish food is not just pastrami sandwiches. Jewish food is not just the Lower East Side of New York. Jewish food is not just Poland. Jewish food is not just Montreal. Jewish food is not just Israel. Jewish food is not just Iran. Jewish food is not just North Africa. Jewish food.” Not just the Sephardic tradition of what we were like before we were expelled from Spain, Jewish food is all of those things.
Greenspan, for one, is a very confident chef. But he is quick to admit that there are many things he does not know, so he asks many friends for help.
“If a Jewish grandmother comes to Misch and calls me out on matzo brei, I can say, with all due respect, ‘Shit.’ Like, I know what I’m doing. ‘I grew up on that shit, too,’” he says. “But if a Persian Jewish grandmother comes to Misch and says that’s not koobideh, I can’t say anything.”
So Greenspan asked Ben Shinasfar, known as Ben Hundreds and the manager of the bustling Benjamin restaurant in Los Angeles, for his thoughts on what kind of Persian food Mish should serve.
“Ben was like, ‘Do it differently. Green it,'” Greenspan says.
The result of this discussion is the sweet and sour mish koobida style meatballs made with wagyu beef and lamb.
Greenspan stresses that MISH is a collaborative process, a library that many people would like to build. The deli serves both pastrami and slow-cooked brisket, which are available on sandwiches or on a tray resembling a Texas barbecue platter. Greenspan worked closely with Matt Giamella Provisions of the Rotterdam Conventionwhich also supplies legendary Los Angeles delis such as Langer’s, Canter’s and Brent’s, to develop Mish’s unique hardwood-smoked pastrami with Levantine flavors.
Meanwhile, Mish’s Charcoal Grilled Beef Salami Sliders are inspired by a trip Greenspan and his friend Spike Mendelsohn took to Montreal, where Greenspan fell in love with Wilensky’s mini salami sandwiches.
“A lot of people know Spike from him Top Chef “Fame and being a powerhouse in D.C.,” Greenspan says. “But a lot of people don’t know that the Spike family is part of Schwartz In Montreal.”
Greenspan knew he had to visit Montreal for research and development after he signed a lease for a space on La Brea Avenue that contained a wood-fired pizza oven. He knew that Mendelssohn would be the ideal mentor.
“I had never made bread before,” Greenspan says. “I’d never used a wood-fired pizza oven before. I didn’t even know how to fire it. And I’d never been to Montreal before. But, yeah, no problem. Montreal bagels are traditionally cooked with wood, right? So we make Montreal bagels.”
When Greenspan began envisioning Misch’s take on Montreal bagels, he called Oren Salomon at the famous party. Starship Bagel In Dallas for help. They ate bagels all over Los Angeles and went to Restaurant Depot to get equipment. But there was a problem: neither of them knew how to light a wood-burning oven. So Michael Fiorelli Fiorelli pizza He came and showed them.
One of the most powerful pizza makers, Daniele Odetti Pizzanahelped with baking experiments in a wood-fired oven. Much of Mish’s research and development has been like this, with leading chefs and restaurant operators coming in for tastings and advice. Greenspan’s comments were provided by Aaron May, Bert Bachman, Danny Gordon, and Max Miller. On the day the Observer visited Greenspan, Shinasfar was in the kitchen tasting a pastrami sandwich.
If Misch is a public service, Greenspan sees all the people who helped him as “benefactors.” He’s been dreaming of opening a Jewish restaurant for years and is grateful for help from friends who believe Mish should thrive.
The mish menu includes a pastrami Reuben and a tuna melt (with Greenspan’s special sauce). New school American cheese), lemonade, bagel sandwiches, whole beef Snap-o-razo hot dogs, Wexler Smokehouse Salmon, fried kreplach, shakshuka in pit, Sephardic chicken salad and much more. It’s no surprise, given that so many different people are involved, that this restaurant celebrates the idea of excess.
Greenspan’s business partner at Mish is prolific restaurateur Bill Chait, who previously opened everything from Republique to Firstborn before working with Greenspan at Tesla Diner. Mische’s pastry chef is Dara Yu, the youngest winner of Master Chef date. Four-time James Beard Award nominee Julian Cox leads Mish’s beverage program, which features coffee, matcha and cocktails.
This is a whole new chapter for Greenspan, who decided to take an extended sabbatical from restaurants a decade ago because he wanted to spend more time with his two young sons. He knew he was the type of chef who would always be in the kitchen if he ran a restaurant.
But he didn’t stop cooking. He pioneered a ghost kitchen that served everything from bacon and egg sandwiches to gourmet duck dinners. Launch MrBeast Burger. He invented the new American cheese at school. He’s been showing up at Coachella with different pop-ups year after year. Then he returned to restaurants with Tesla Diner.
He thinks the last 10 years are the miserable part of his career. But his children are older now and don’t need him all the time, so Greenspan can focus on the diaspora part of his career.
“I took my son, Meyer, to baseball practice a couple of years ago, and he said, ‘OK, Dad, I’ll see you at the truck,’” Greenspan says. “I’m like, ‘What do you mean? You don’t want me to stay?'” And he’s like, “No, I’m fine, just come back and pick me up.” And I realized that what my children needed from me now was different from what my children needed from me in the past ten years.
Greenspan started texting people to see if they wanted to open a restaurant, and Chait immediately said yes. Then it was time for Greenspan to talk to his children.
“I told them, ‘Guys, this is the deal,'” Greenspan recalled. ”You’ve known me all your life, and you have no idea who I am.” I said: Do you know how crazy my father is? There is one specific environment in which daddy’s madness leads to excellence: running a restaurant. It’s time for me to get back to who I am. It’s time to meet your father, because there’s a whole part of my life you’ve never seen before.
But Mish Restaurant isn’t open in the evening, so Greenspan can come home for dinner and help with his homework. He reserves the right to return to Mish and fire up his oven after dinner and his homework. It’s all part of the hard work of being a chef who cares deeply about his or her work.
“I’m someone who doesn’t run away from challenges,” Greenspan says. “I confronted them.”
One challenge that Greenspan clearly recognizes is that Los Angeles and other North American cities have a long history of Jewish prepared foods. In Los Angeles alone, the original Canter’s opened in 1931, Langer’s dates back to 1947, and Brent’s launched in 1967, to name a few. Greenspan, with the help of several friends, wants to rewrite the script.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants, but we free ourselves from the burden of tradition to create something new and modern,” says Greenspan. “The entire community behind this is actually onto something. The amount of people who want this thing to happen, not because they love me but because of the blatant need for something new and fresh in this space, is crazy.”
Mish Restaurant is located at 127 S. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90036 and will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
