Israel, now home to more than 170,000 people of Ethiopian descent, has a vibrant Ethiopian culinary scene.

Born to a Beta Israel father and an Ethiopian Christian mother who converted to Judaism upon immigrating to Israel, 34-year-old Elazar Tamano grew up looking for new ways to express his heritage. After being the runner-up on one of Israel’s popular television cooking competition shows, The Next Restaurant, the Tel Aviv resident began to stage his sold-out Ethiopian popup dinners all over the country to showcase his twists on tradition, like berbere-spiced fish tartare on a teff cracker and spicy long-cooked meat encased in a crispy injera pocket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fanta Prada, the 42-year-old proprietor of Balinjera, an Ethiopian restaurant in Tel Aviv’s Yemenite Quarter is a former attorney and model who pivoted a decade ago to food to ensure she was doing her part to promote Ethiopian culture.

“It’s about so much more than the food,” Prada explained as she served me a vegetarian sampler arranged artfully on a giant round of injera bread. Everything in her restaurant is prepared fresh daily, including her gingery Swiss chard that I featured in my book Sababa. “It’s about thousands of years of longing for Israel and preserving that story for future generations.”