Alaesh Grill: Twelve Years of Hilltop Fire, Relit in Modiin

The first thing that reaches you is the smell, charcoal smoke and rendered fat drifting across the entrance lobby before the hostess has finished her greeting. Behind the two reception desks a wine display and a stack of split logs promise that the fire is the point of the evening. Beyond them the room opens wide, tables set with real distance between them, Israeli music kept low enough to talk over. On a busy evening the room fills quickly: families ordering skewers by the stick, colleagues from the offices in the same complex splitting a mixed grill, a table of grandparents waiting for the next basket of hot taboon bread. This is Alaesh on Sderot HaReches, a grill house built entirely around charcoal.

The people behind it are Gal Eisenberg and Kfir Kahana, who ran Pichonka in Moshav Nes Harim for twelve years, a glass walled restaurant with a view of the Jerusalem hills. Eisenberg is the entrepreneur and the chef behind Alaesh, and the long cherished steakhouse he always wanted. Amir Saeed, a Jerusalem cook with three decades in professional kitchens who worked the Pichonka line, runs the day to day cooking and also makes the desserts.