Alena: Six Hundred Degrees on a Rothschild Corner

The frena arrives first, straight off the coals, so hot that the server sets it down and steps back. Tear it open and the steam carries sage and thyme across the table. Underneath sits a pool of tahini and a clove of confit garlic gone soft as butter. It is half past seven on a Tuesday on Sderot Rothschild, the light inside has dropped to something low and amber, and the room is already loud in the way a good room is loud: people leaning in, not shouting over each other. Behind the pass, a charcoal oven the size of a small wardrobe has been running at 600 degrees since noon. This is Alena, the kosher hamara that brothers Dvir and Niv Nifusi moved to number 104, and it opens the way it intends to continue.

Everything at Alena goes through one piece of equipment. The kitchen is built around a single Josper charcoal oven that the owners describe, accurately enough, as a Japanese charcoal box, and it climbs to 600 degrees Celsius. Meat, vegetables and bread all pass through it. That temperature is not a boast, it is a constraint: it sears fast and leaves the inside alone, which is why the entrecote comes out with a black crust and a centre that is still pink, and why a whole eggplant emerges collapsed and smoky rather than stewed.