Who, What & Where: Claudia Winkleman, Sharon Osborne, Israeli chef popup, award-winning cafe, Jewish history
Our weekly roundup of the arts, entertainment and all things LIFE!
Louisa Walters is Features Editor at the Jewish News and specialises in food and travel writing
EVENT: Kitchen Dreams
If you’re up for a different kind of Friday night dinner, Claudia Winkleman is interviewing Mary Berry at BFI Southbank tomorrow night as part of The BFI & Radio Times Television Festival. Mary Berry has been championing home cooking on TV and since the 1970s and while chicken soup may not be her forte, she is very much Britain’s Queen of the Kitchen.
EXHIBITION: The Face of a Queen
The Queen of Arts exhibition in the Marconi Lounge at ME London hotel features works by four artists to celebrate the monarch in her Platinum Jubilee year. From bold and colourful depictions, to unusual and intriguing interpretations of what it means to be the sovereign in Britain today, the artists have each used their own unique style to pay tribute to Her Maj. One of the works is by Dan Pearce, a mixed media artist who combines modern day influences of Dface and Shepard Fairey with the older influences of Warhol and Lichtenstein to create a unique explosion of energy and colour. Last year Dan was commissioned by Sharon Osbourne to paint a right royal depiction of her. “I love the Queen”, says Sharon, who looks undeniably regal in her $50,000 gift to herself.
The Queen of Arts is at ME London until 30 June www.mebymelia.com
AWARD: Manchester Marvel
The cafe at Manchester’s Jewish Museum has won Cafe or Restaurant of the Year at the 2022 Museum and Heritage Awards. Not bad for a venue that only opened a year ago, serving vegetarian takes on traditional Jewish dishes, like ‘Not Quite Traditional Chicken Soup (veggie broth with mushrooms and matzo balls). The cafe was founded as part of a £6 million redevelopment of the museum in Cheetham Hill. It beat competition from the Stonehenge Cafe and the bistro at Black Watch Castle in Perth.
Alex Cropper, curator at the Manchester Jewish Museum, said: “It felt so exciting to be at the Museum and Heritage Awards on Wednesday night and to gather to celebrate our sector for the first time since the pandemic – there was a real buzz in the room. And to win an award was the icing on the cake! “It was an honour to accept the Café of the Year award on stage on behalf of our incredible café team and great to see our name up there amongst such incredible museums in the Permanent Gallery of the Year category.” The cafe’s team leader Joe Davey added: ”It feels great to get recognition at such an important event like the Museums and Heritage Awards.
FOOD: Chefs on the Carousel
Chefs Omer Shadmi Muller and Daniel Zur of Alena at The Norman hotel in Tel Aviv will be popping up at Carousel in Fitzrovia for a week-long residency this June. Omer and Daniel will bring their European-inspired dishes with a Mediterranean and Galilean flourish to London for a second time, having previously collaborated with the Carousel team for five sell-out nights in 2020. Omer and Daniel are lifelong friends and have risen through the ranks of restaurants such as The Barbary and the River Café. They draw inspiration and use techniques from their global experience and fuse them with their childhood knowledge of the Israeli landscape and ingredients. The six-course menu at Carousel includes ‘road style’ bagels with various toppings, Galilean ceviche, roasted cabbage with beef jus and pine nuts, beef or lamb tartar, Galilee egg yolk Raviolo, lamb chops and pistachio basbusa. There will be appropriately-named cocktails such as Return of Sumac and Instant Carmel “We are coming to London to demonstrate our take on new Israeli cuisine,” says Daniel: “Our philosophy is that great dining experiences should be simple and fun, with outstanding flavour being the most poignant memory our guests go away with,” says Omer.
Omer and Daniel are at Carousel 7 – 11 June. £75pp for the set menu. www.carousel-london.com
This month in Jewish History
By Jewish News historian Derek Taylor
On 23 May 1939 the fate of large numbers of future Holocaust victims was settled when the British government passed its White Paper on Palestine. This restricted Jewish immigration for the next five years to 75,000 in all, though only 51,000 visas were eventually used. In 1935 there had been 320,000 Jewish immigrants. The government paper rejected the earlier Peel Commission’s proposal to partition Palestine. This was the result of the Arab revolt against the British mandate, which took place from 1936 to 1939 under the leadership of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini. There had been an earlier attempt to agree a settlement, with a London conference of Arabs and Zionists, but this had not been successful. There had also been a Jewish General Strike on May 18th. The fact was both Jews and Arabs were antagonistic towards the mandatory power. Over the three years 2,000 Arabs were killed and 108 hanged.
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