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FOOD&DRINK
COME IN,WE’REOPEN
A Jerusalem coffee shop
bucks Shabbat
On Saturdays, West Jerusa-
lem is largely shuttered in
observance of Shabbat, the
Jewish day of rest. But not Hili
Klatchko’s trendy café, Qawe
House. Even on Saturday this
place draws a hip crowd
of writers, artists and
young families, who
munch on lemony chopped
salads, tahini cookies and
Klatchko’s famous challah
French toast with a pot of
homemade fig, plum or apricot
jam from her mother’s kitchen
and slices of Jaffa orange or
persimmon.
“
I wanted to make another
option for Israelis who are not
necessarily religious
to have a
SWEET ANDON
THE DOWN-LOW
The hunt for this legendary
pastry shop is half the fun
Among the crowded
alleymarkets of Jeru-
salem’s Old City, at
the bo om of a stair-
case that leads to the
Ethiopian Orthodox
part of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre’s
roof, is an anonymous
metal door in an
ancient stone wall.
There’s no sign outside, and inside there’s
only a plain space with about four tables
withplastic chairs—but all Jerusalemfoodies
know this place well. It’s Zalatimo, a pastry
shop famed for crispy square envelopes of
phyllo filled with crumbled cheese curds or
clods of groundwalnut and cinnamon. Called
mutabak
,
this centuries-old delicacy was
brought to Jerusalem by Mohammed Zala-
timo in the 1860s. Today, great-grandsonHani
Zalatimo constructs the pastries on an oiled
stone slab, stretching a skein of the thinnest
phyllowith a pizzaiolo’s practiced flip. Served
whole, drizzled with syrup and sprinkled
with powdered sugar, the
results are thoroughly
worth the trip—at least
for those who manage to
find the place. —W.S.
SATURDAY
BRUNCH
Qawe House’s
famedchallah
French toast
DOUGH!
Above,
Zalatimo’s
mutabak
;
below,
Hani Zalatimo
plies his trade
INATOWNASFULL
of Jewish grandmothers as Jerusalem, much is
understandablymade of the “old ways.” Among the strongholds of
tradition, one of themost beloved isAzura, an eatery on the lopsided
piazza behindMachane Yehuda where oldmen
play dominoes over cups of strong sweet tea.
Founded by Ezra Shrefler, who came to
Israel from Turkey in 1949, Azura features
food cooked largely over
p’tilia
,
small oil-wick
canister stoves that were popular in the first
half of the 20th century. Even though
p’tilia
stopped being manufactured 30 years ago,
the restaurant still uses thembecause they pro-
vide an ambient heat that’s somewhere above
warm, but below simmer. “It makes the food
thicker,” says Chico Shrefler, one of Ezra’s sons
who now run the restaurant. “It’s a special taste—a small flame that
heats slowly and for a long time. It’s very nostalgic.”
Azura’s dishes, a mix of Kurdish, Iraqi, Syrian andMoroccan cui-
sine, come off like a kind of Sephardic comfort food. For instance,
SlowCooking
The old stuff is the good stuff at the family-run Azura
