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Everything I learned on the road, around one table.

Chef Guy Portal's studio · Kosher chef dinners in Jaffa

Live fire, carefully chosen ingredients and plates made to be passed around, tasted together, with one more piece of bread to tear.

Dates and bookingNext evening:Friday 30 October · 20:0010 seats left

Upcoming evenings

Come hungry. Stay a little longer.

I love the moment someone tastes something, pauses for a second and passes the plate to the person next to them.

I opened the studio for that moment.

A place for personal hospitality, for people who love food and for evenings you can sink into. Plates that land in the middle, conversation growing between bites, and the closeness that comes from sharing something good.

At 9 Shimon HaTzadik in Jaffa I opened a place where I cook everything I collected along the way. Come in, get to know it, and let me cook for you.

I want you to enjoy the food, feel free to ask for more, and stay to talk after you are done eating.

I'm Guy. In kitchens since I was 14.

At 18 I left Israel to study and to work in kitchens that demanded more of me.

The road went through culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, the kitchen of Amador in Vienna and then Asador Etxebarri in the Basque Country, where I rose to sous chef.

I learned discipline, precision and respect for raw ingredients. I learned how much work hides inside a bite that looks simple, and how much listening fire demands: the distance from the embers, the heat, the time and the moment to take it off.

That is how PORTAL was born.

About Guy
  1. Paris
    Culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu
  2. Vienna
    The kitchen of Amador
  3. Basque Country
    Asador Etxebarri, up to sous chef
  4. Israel
    Running kitchens, building menus, guiding restaurateurs
  5. PORTAL, Jaffa
    Cooking in the most personal way, and serving myself

France, the Basque Country, Japan. And in the end, a reason to wipe the plate.

My cooking moves between places, techniques and memories.

French precision, work with charcoal, the depth of Asian kitchens and the flavours we grew up on here all meet at my table.

I can be moved by a stock I worked on for hours, a cut of meat grilled at exactly the right moment, or a matbucha that takes me back to my grandmother's kitchen.

In each of them I look for the same thing: good raw material, an understanding of what it needs and real feeling inside the food.

Kashrut is part of my kitchen and of the craft inside it. Flavour is built through grilling, stocks, fat, seasoning and time. Through attention to everything that goes on the plate.

And with all the places I have been and the techniques I learned, something very Israeli stayed with me:

In the end there has to be a good reason to tear off one more piece of bread and wipe the plate.

There is room for you too.

Come as a pair, with friends, or with someone you have long wanted to share a good meal with.

Attendance is by advance booking. Choose a date, read the details of the evening and come meet around the food.

Want to gather your own people for a private evening? Write to me and we will look at the options together.