Promised Land

A RESERVATION AT SAFFY’S, A SIMPLE MIDDLE-EASTERN RESTAURANT FROM THE OWNERS OF BESTIA AND BAVEL, IS LIKE AN INVITATION TO DINNER AT THEIR PLACE

BY HEATHER PLATT

IF YOU’RE lucky enough to snag a reservation at Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis’s new Middle-Eastern restaurant, the host will likely call you on the phone to confirm. This is a foreshadowing of what’s to come: the kind of warm, welcoming service one can only hope for from a night out.

Sa y’s is set back from the street on a quiet corner in East Hollywood. Arrive early and have a cocktail like the Sour—a bright orange tangy mix of mezcal, pineapple, carrot, passionfruit, lime, and habanero—at a sidewalk table, and listen to the hosts kindly greeting every guest.

Inside, the space is as vibrant as the cocktail. Chef Menashe stands in front of the wood-burning oven overseeing the shawarma and lamb, pork, and chicken kebabs. For those familiar with Bestia or Bavel, this particular image of him with his back to diners and face to fire is iconic, and one wonders how he has managed to successfully clone himself yet again. But Menashe seems most comfortable at Sa y’s.

FAMILY-STYLE opening Bavel in 2018, he began dreaming of a falafel stand. “I had the craving to cook meats on skewers.”

Sa y’s is named after Menashe and Gergis’s eight-year-old daughter, Sa ron.

Two years later, the couple found the perfect location. “Three or four weeks into the pandemic, we signed a lease, thinking that the pandemic was going to end, and it never did.”

Ultimately, Sa y’s is a full-service restaurant where diners pile into yellow banquettes to share beautiful plates of hummus dusted with smoked paprika, Lebanese pine nuts, green zhoug, and challah that the chef has recently perfected. “The challah was something that I baked probably 100 times before I said, ‘OK, this is the recipe.’ ” The meat-centric menu is rounded out with masterly sides like green falafel with tahini served atop puddles of beet zhoug and sprinkled with dill.

Keeping with the theme of simplicity, Gergis’s pastry menu is short and, well, sweet. “A fancy dessert is beautiful,” she says, “but what you really want at the end of the day is a strawberry shortcake.”

New & Notable Dono

SANTA MONICA

● At chef Brendan Collins’s new ode to the Iberian Peninsula, large plates of seafood paella and lamb shank tagine are best paired with gin and tonics by bar director Gabriella Mlynarcyk.

2460 Wilshire Blvd., donorestaurant.com.

Mandolin Taverna

DOWNTOWN

● The first L.A. outpost of Miami’s Mandolin Aegean Bistro, this coastal Mediterraneanstyle eatery, with its sprawling garden space, is a lovely place to eat Turkish- and Greekinfluenced dishes like zucchini-squash blossom flatbreads with pistachio tahini.

1000 S. Santa Fe Ave., mandolinmiami.com.

Mother Tongue

WEST HOLLYWOOD

● This eatery inside a fitness club uses healthy ingredients to create international comfort food. It’s all cooked by Michael Mina with immense flavor.

960 N. La Brea Ave., hellomothertongue.com.

“We just wanted to bring the guests into our home,” he says.

Menashe admits that six months into

“I think food is what brings everyone together,” adds Menashe. “And this food is cooked to make people happy.”

4845 Fountain Ave., East Hollywood, sa ysla.com.

Stephanie Izard

HOST OF DINNER IS HARD WITH STEPHANIE IZARD

Stephanie Izard is a highly acclaimed chef having won Bravo’s Top Chef (2008), Food & Wine “Best New Chef” (2011), James Beard “Best Chef: Great Lakes” (2013), and Food Network’s Iron Chef Gauntlet (2017).

Izard is executive chef and owner of multiple restaurants both in Chicago (Girl & the Goat, Little Goat, Duck Duck Goat, Cabra, and Sugargoat) and in L.A. (Girl & the Goat and Cabra). She created This Little Goat, a retail brand with globally inspired cooking sauces, spices, and crunches for home cooks. Izard has also published two cookbooks: Girl in the Kitchen (2011) and Gather & Graze (2018).

Dinner Is Hard with Stephanie Izard premieres this Fall on Tastemade’s streaming channel and on-demand.