If you know anything about Israeli restaurateur Eyal Shani, the buccaneering force behind pita chain Miznon, then you will know that there are many things about the conventional dining experience that he apparently disdains. He does not go in for classic napery, preferring to adorn tables with butcher’s paper and a tomato. The freeform jazz of his dish descriptions (“six spicy instruments that will swirl your soul”) signal how he feels about menus that prioritise being decipherable. His habit of serving food in paper bags hints at a war on crockery, washing up, or both. All this was part of the blazing, madcap charm of the first London Miznon; it was the eccentric price of admission that you gratefully paid to access Shani’s astonishing, homestyle Jewish flavours.
But more than once during my meal at Lilienblum — an ostensibly more formal, follow-up to Miznon near Shoreditch — I had the sense that some of the perplexing choices and weird flourishes were crowding out my enjoyment. Yes, the dishes were still cooked with unexpected flair, potency and restraint. Yet now I was asking why something billed as a focaccia instead arrived as a puffy, oven-blistered flatbread. I was querying the wisdom of presenting dishes on what appeared to be the slippy, reflective pieces of card used to seal foil takeaway containers. I was wondering whether the looseness of Lilienblum’s concept was blunting the impact of Shani’s undeniable genius.
