Shoshana Delishop, the last classic of Jewish cuisine in Bom Retiro, is saved from closing

As is usually the case with neighborhood businesses, the restaurant that has been occupying a property on Rua Correia de Melo for 30 years has become known mainly by the name of the owners. It’s Adi and Shoshi or simply Shoshi, Shoshana or Delishop — a redundancy, considering that this is usually the term used to designate Jewish food stores.

Opened by the couple Adi and Shoshana Baruch in 1991, there is one of the establishments that make up the gastronomic babel of Bom Retiro, in the central region of São Paulo. Today, more than that, it also symbolizes the spirit of a community and presents a model of marriage between the traditional and the modern.

The last classic specializing in Jewish cuisine to survive in the neighborhood, the space was one of those who suffered from the pandemic and even announced, via social media, that it would close its doors until the end of 2020. The news generated commotion and gave a new lease of life. to the house, which announced that it would maintain the operation. At the beginning of last year, the business announced that it had received an investment and that it would reopen. But it did not work.

This back-and-forth came to an end in July, when Benjamin Seroussi finally took the keys to the property. “It wasn’t in my plans to buy any restaurants,” he says. But when he heard that the family would have to close the doors, he decided to take over the business.

“I thought it would be a loss for the neighborhood if the restaurant closed,” he says. “It is still an intangible heritage.”

Seroussi is the director of Casa do Povo, a cultural center located a few meters from Shoshana, on Rua Três Rios, and he joined two friends, Arthur Hirsch and Ines Mindlin Lafer, to lead the collective mobilization in favor of the house. “We got together to keep the story alive, but also to try to do something a little different,” he explains.

With that, the trio opened the capital to another 20 minority partners — so far 13 people have joined the partnership. The idea is that the family profile restaurant is now a collective. “So, it is no longer just a company to become a business with purpose.”

For Seroussi, the pandemic moment demonstrates that serving food in Brazil cannot be restricted to serving customers. “We have to do more, we have to work with the neighborhood”, he says. Therefore, from the moment he embarked on the venture, he began to envision which paths Shoshana’s kitchen would follow.

“We are going to take tradition as a starting point, not an arrival point”, explains Seroussi, who plans to offer diasporic Jewish cuisine there, with recipes from North Africa, Eastern Europe and even India, as well as rescuing recipes from other Jewish restaurants. that no longer exist in the neighbourhood, such as Europa. Always under the supervision of Shoshana herself, who maintains the operation of Casa Búlgara, another Bom Retiro classic, a few blocks away.

The project began to take on more concrete forms with the arrival of chef and researcher Fred Caffarena, from Firin Salonu and Make Hommus Not War. Despite not having Jewish roots, the cook specializes in Middle Eastern cuisine. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking over the house if the proposal was to offer only food from Israel. I think they would have more symbolic and better people to play this role. But this research has a lot to do with my work”, he explains. “We say it’s not to create a ‘gourmetized’, super-modern environment, but to bring this heritage, this history, make this cuisine just a little more up-to-date, give it a more current context.”

Despite being closed for renovation until March, the house presented a little of its new phase to the public on December 28, in an event called Mishmash Shoshana, a word that means “mixture” in Yiddish – a language spoken by Jews and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

On the menu, Caffarena presented reinterpretations of Jewish classics such as latkes and guefilte fish. The event, which started at 6:00 pm, was already crowded at 5:30 pm with families from the neighborhood, old customers and people from other corners of the city. Shoshana attended the meeting because Adi died at the end of the year. But his son Nir, who worked as the house chef until the space closed its doors, was present. “The restaurant is also a tribute to Adi,” says Seroussi.

The irreverent proposal of the night pleased the public. “I thought I would be cursed by all the matriarchs who were there, but they not only loved it, they also understood the proposal”, says the chef.

But any complaints will be part of the script, says Seroussi. “In a Jewish place, people have to complain,” he jokes. “We hope to be the second best place to eat, after their house.”