Erev is an Israeli restaurant in Notting Hill, though Israeli restaurants do not call themselves Israeli nowadays. They have rebranded to Eastern Mediterranean and I don’t blame them. These are bad days for Zionists. I tried to buy an almond croissant at the progressive coffee shop in Newlyn last week while wearing an Israeli flag as a cape. My excuse was: it was election day, and Gaza was on the ballot. I didn’t get the almond croissant. They didn’t have any.
Erev, though, is the subject of real protests from real people who think that eating is, under certain circumstances, a genocidal act. They stand outside and shout at diners. If you think genocide and restaurants have nothing to do with each other, meet 2026. I grasped for a description of the protestors from photographs and found only: people who hate Jews standing opposite a Jewish restaurant – do not de-Judaise the Jewish state, we are not stupid here – because they wish it wasn’t there.
I spend so much time despising Notting Hill, I sometimes forget how pretty it is. It is not all plastic wisteria and women having so much ‘aesthetic medicine’ they can no longer shrug. There are very fine Victorian houses, and Erev sits in one of them, on a corner. There are dark grey awnings and Erev written in jaunty, potentially genocidal letters, because everything is now pre-genocidal, which means nothing is. That’s the point. There is no picket, though I long for one.
This is called ‘the best hummus ever’ and it might be – I wanted to lie face down in it
Erev is stylish but not in the common Notting Hill way: that is, it is not for American girls who only respond to the lilac part of the spectrum. It is dim and rather sexy: dark-green walls; spotlights; a tiled floor, presumably to evoke the souk of Jerusalem. People come here in solidarity, as they come to Gail’s bakery: a group came from the House of Lords. The Jewish Chronicle reports that a man telephoned to pay for pitta bread but said he didn’t live nearby and couldn’t collect but keep the money. That is Jewish solidarity, precise, food-related and insane.
It’s not unusual for Jews to up our game during any crisis. Perhaps it is to taunt the lazy protestors, perhaps it was always like this, but the food is perfect. Eastern Mediterranean food – we’ll go with it for now – usually leaves me longing for the falafel shack near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, because the owner puts chips in my falafel sandwich and pretends to remember me. Even so, there is only so much you can do in a hole in the wall. Notting Hill has more resources.
We know hummus can be very bad: mashed chickpeas can taste exactly like they sound. This, though, meets what I think might be the world’s most perfect cuisine, for who else can do such things to salad? Erev calls it ‘the best hummus ever’ and it might be – I wanted to lie face down in it. Chicken brochette is a kebab, marvellously spiced and charred. I would call beef croquette with harissa aioli ‘cow falafel’. It is rich, dense and lovely. The dinosaur bone – this copywriting tends to hysteria – is slow-cooked short-rib beef, baked and glazed. We eat it with burning potato, which is jacket potato hollowed, mashed, grilled with Parmesan cheese, and given a name of doom.
Eating in Erev is nothing like eating in Israel. In spirit, Notting Hill and Haifa could not be further apart. But it is true diaspora living still – sitting in one place and dreaming of another.
Erev, 14 Elgin Crescent, London W11 2HX; tel: 020 3479 8878.
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