Israeli Soul — Easy, Essential, Delicious

The Soul of a Cuisine

Israeli Soul is Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook’s follow-up to their landmark, James Beard Award-winning Zahav, and it shifts the focus from restaurant-level cooking to the heart of the cuisine: the street food and home cooking that form, as the title says, the soul of Israeli food. Where Zahav brought the sophisticated cooking of their celebrated Philadelphia restaurant to ambitious home cooks, Israeli Soul goes straight to the people’s food — the falafel, hummus, sabich, shawarma, and other essential dishes that fill the streets and homes of Israel — and presents them in an accessible, achievable form. For fans of Zahav and for anyone curious about this vibrant cuisine, it is a warm and inviting companion.

The premise is appealing precisely because it democratises the food. This is the cooking of everyday life, presented by a master who clearly loves it.

Accessible and Essential

The defining quality of Israeli Soul is its accessibility. The recipes focus on the essential, beloved dishes of Israeli street food and home cooking, and they are presented to be genuinely achievable for the home cook rather than aspirational restaurant showpieces. Solomonov and Cook break down the classics — how to make great falafel, how to achieve the silky hummus that made Zahav famous, how to build a proper sabich — with the clarity and guidance that let a committed home cook succeed. This is a more approachable book than Zahav, and that accessibility is its central appeal, opening the cuisine to a wider audience.

The Authority of a Master

What gives Israeli Soul its weight is the authority and passion behind it. Solomonov is one of the foremost ambassadors of Israeli cuisine, a James Beard Award winner with a deep, personal connection to the food, and that expertise and love suffuse the book. The recipes are reliable and the guidance is expert, and the writing carries the warmth and storytelling that distinguished Zahav. Cooking from Israeli Soul is learning the food from someone who understands it intimately and is eager to share it, and that combination of accessibility and authority is rare and valuable.

A Vibrant, Multicultural Cuisine

Like Zahav, Israeli Soul opens up the broader world of Israeli cooking — a cuisine that is itself a vibrant crossroads of Middle Eastern, North African, Mediterranean, and Eastern European traditions. The street food and home dishes it covers reflect that rich diversity, and the book introduces home cooks to flavours and techniques that genuinely expand their repertoire. For readers whose experience of the cuisine is limited, it is a flavourful and welcoming doorway into a deep and varied culinary culture.

A Question of Pantry

As with any book exploring a specific cuisine deeply, cooking from Israeli Soul at its best means stocking some specialty ingredients — good tahini, particular spices, and a few regional staples — and readers without easy access to a well-stocked market or online sources will need to plan ahead. The street food classics also reward a little practice to perfect; great falafel and hummus depend on technique as much as ingredients. This is inherent to the territory, and the investment pays off, but it means the book is a focused immersion in a cuisine rather than a grab-anything reference.

A Worthy Companion

Israeli Soul is the natural companion to Zahav, extending Solomonov’s celebrated approach to the more casual, everyday end of the cuisine. For fans of the first book, it is a must, offering more of his food in a more accessible form; for newcomers, it is an excellent and approachable starting point. Together, the two books form a rich introduction to Israeli cooking, from the street to the restaurant, all rendered with passion and authority.

The Verdict

Israeli Soul is a warm, accessible, deeply delicious companion to Zahav that goes straight to the heart of Israeli street food and home cooking. It delivers the essential, beloved dishes of the cuisine in an achievable form, taught by a James Beard-winning master with genuine love and authority. For fans of Zahav and for adventurous home cooks wanting to explore this vibrant culinary culture, it is a flavourful, rewarding, and welcoming addition to the kitchen.

Democratising a Cuisine

The deeper achievement of Israeli Soul is the way it democratises a cuisine. Where Zahav showcased the heights of Israeli cooking through the lens of a celebrated restaurant, Israeli Soul brings the everyday food — the street snacks, the home staples, the dishes that ordinary people actually eat — within reach of the home cook. This focus on accessibility reflects a generous impulse: Solomonov clearly wants people not just to admire Israeli food but to cook it, and the book lowers the barrier to doing so. That mission, of opening a rich and varied culinary culture to a wide audience, is part of what has made Solomonov such an important ambassador for the cuisine. For readers, the reward is the ability to recreate beloved, flavour-packed dishes at home, taught by a master who treats both the food and the cultures behind it with evident love and respect. It is a book that turns curiosity about a cuisine into the confidence to cook it, which is a genuine and valuable thing.

Our rating: 4.6/5 — A warm, accessible companion to Zahav that brings the soul of Israeli street food and home cooking to the home kitchen, taught with a master’s passion and authority.

Explore More

• Browse our full guide to the best cooking & food books.