Customers say
Customers find the recipes in the cookbook well-written and delicious. They appreciate the beautiful illustrations and unique take on Middle Eastern food. The buckwheat sesame bread is also mentioned as amazing.
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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
From the acclaimed chefs behind award-winning Los Angeles restaurant Bavel comes a gorgeous cookbook featuring personal stories and more than eighty recipes that celebrate the diversity of Middle Eastern cuisines.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME OUT • “Ori and Genevieve manage to pull off a style of cooking that is both familiar (and therefore comforting) but also new (and therefore fresh and exciting). This is the sort of food I could live on.”—Yotam Ottolenghi
When chef Ori Menashe and pastry chef Genevieve Gergis opened their first Los Angeles restaurant, Bestia, the city fell in love. By the time they launched their second restaurant, Bavel, the love affair had expanded to cooks and food lovers nationwide. Bavel, the cookbook, invites home cooks to explore the broad and varied cuisines of the Middle East through fragrant spice blends; sublime zhougs, tahini, labneh, and hummus; rainbows of crisp-pickled vegetables; tender, oven-baked flatbreads; fall-off-the-bone meats and tagines; buttery pastries and tarts; and so much more.
Bavel—pronounced bah-VELLE, the Hebrew name for Babel—is a metaphor for the myriad cultural, spiritual, and political differences that divide us. The food of Bavel tells the many stories of the countries defined as “the Middle East.” These recipes are influenced by the flavors and techniques from all corners of the region, and many, such as Tomato with Smoked Harissa, Turmeric Chicken with Toum, and Date-Walnut Tart, are inspired by Menashe’s Israeli upbringing and Gergis’s Egyptian roots. Bavel celebrates the freedom to cook what we love without loyalty to any specific country, and represents a world before the region was divided into separate nations. This is cooking without borders.
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: Foodtravelfun
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: So good and the recipes work!
Review: I’m obsessed with this book. So far I have made the pita, the buckwheat sourdough bread and started the chickpeas for hummus. For the pita recipe I used whole eggs like they do at the restaurant and they came out amazing. We ate them all week, just warming them in the steel pan. The buckwheat sesame bread was amazing too. Thank you for having grams!! I hate cups. Looking forward to finishing the hummus and making lamb necks.Side note- I don’t know why people are still say that some ingredients are hard to find…you can get everything you want on the internet! It’s so easy.
Reviewer: Chris
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excited to start cooking from this book!
Review: Ever since I went to the restaurant in Arts District, Los Angeles, I have been OBSESSED. I knew I had to get my hands on this cookbook to recreate some of the mouth-watering dishes I had. The quality of this book is phenomenal and you can tell the chefs/authors pit a lot of time in creating it. Everything is beautifully photographed and each recipe comes with a small snippet of the chef’s background. 10/10 would buy this book again.
Reviewer: Robert
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: extraprdinarily delicious and simple to prepare – a Must
Review: A brilliant and highly unique take on Middle Eastern food from one of the most popular restaurants in Los Angeles. Everything is delicious, is it to prepare and will light up your taste buds with a spectrum of flavors from the Middle East. Don’t hesitate, get this book
Reviewer: Trent Vernon
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A great mix of recipes. Some quibbles
Review: I am really, really loving this book! I tend to have more middle eastern inspired cookbooks than any one type.. so was worried for redundancy.. but nope. This cook book doesn’t strive for authenticity.. the tahdig has parmigiana in it! Also. Los Angeles has its fingers in it as well (scallop crudo with Serrano chili oil)The majority of the recipes are cheffy restaurant dishes that aren’t simplified for the home cook (expect some esoteric ingredients – Calamansi vinegar, jalapeño powder, rose oil, orange blossom oil come to mind). I do wish he included the Pita recipe that uses a wood fired ovenI have noticed at least one recipe error (32 cherry tomatoes for a salad for two ((I think it meant. 2 or 3 cherry tomatoes)). In the plum and tomato salad pictured.Also. It’s a bit frustrating when the food styling doesn’t match the recipe. For tumeric chicken, the picture – the chicken is spatchcocked with the marinade wiped off. In the recipe, it’s trussedI agree with the other reviewer that some of the recipe quantities are large. While others like the salad are for two. WeirdMinor quibbles aside. What I have made so far has been great: tumeric chicken (will spatchcock next time and wipe the marinade off before baking), wedding rice. Delicious, and plum and tomato salad — the first wow dishLooking forward to cooking more!
Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Such a beautiful cookbook
Review: This cookbook is incredible – Its beautiful and can be used as a coffee table book but also the recipes are accessible and practical and it doesn’t look super complicated like many other middle eastern cookbooks I own. I am so excited to be able to cook with the delicious flavors of one of my favorite restaurants in LA.
Reviewer: Anisa
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Perfect Condition
Review: Appreciated the handwritten note. Book was in amazing condition. I’m so happy to buy it and excited to cook with it soon. Thank you
Reviewer: Elissa B.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Only Cookbooks to have Bavel and Bestia and Now Saffys by Chef Ori Menashe
Review: Honestly in our opinion there are no other amazing cookbooks with these type of Middle Eastern and French and European and Moroccan and Egyptian recipes! Only Bavel or Bestia cookbooks Chef Ori Menashe owner of Bestia restaurant, Bavel restaurant, and Now Saffys restaurantEnjoy!!
Reviewer: Jennifer lee
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: If only I could make it like the restaurant
Review: We love the restaurant and thought it would be nice to be able to make the dishes at home. Unfortunately, the recipes call for a lot of hard to find spices. We had to go to multiple markets and plan well in advance before making anything from here. But, so so good. I only wish we had the skill to make it as good as the restaurant does.
Reviewer: Isobel Benett
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A fantastic read with delightful, authentic recipes to try. Only slight negative is that some ingredients may be difficult to get in regular UK supermarkets but it’s worth the trek to specialist shops.
Reviewer: Sheppardess
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Nice looking book, but who needs 60 felafel and a gallon of pickles that must be kept in the fridge!It’s a shame the author didn’t consider the domestic cook because scaling recipes down to a 6th of the original size isn’t a recipe for success.
Price effective as of Mar 22, 2025 03:30:20 UTC
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