72 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {food coloring} tomato salad with red bell peppers; and an apple-cabbage salad dressed in a cumin vinaigrette. Bubbelah isn’t David’s first foray into serving Jewish cuisine. He introduced some Roman-Jewish specialties at his Italian restaurants, like crispy-fried artichokes and suppli, deep-fried balls of rice, cheese and tomato akin to arancini. But Bubbelah is a personal project that excites him. “I wanted something near and dear to my heart,” he says. In 2016, before opening Che Fico, and after working as the senior sous hummus, tahina, pickled turnip, shredded cabbage, garlic sauce, amba and schug (often spelled zhoug), a spicy sauce made from serrano peppers, cilantro and garlic. Kebabs are also served as rice plates. “Those foods were very present in my childhood. Both my brother and I were latchkey kids because our parents worked and started their own businesses,” David explains. To help out, the family had live-in help from a series of Soviet women who hailed from Georgia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Russian meat kebabs are very different from Middle Eastern and Turkish kebabs, David notes. The Russian variety, called shashlik, are marinated meat cubes grilled over hot coals, while the latter are meats that can also be shaved from a vertical spit. Sturgeon is also used in Russian and Armenian kebabs. Bubbelah’s mezze plate omits the ubiquitous hummus, and is a riot of color that features muhammara, labneh, matbucha, carrot salad and baba ganoush. chef at three-Michelin-star Eleven Madison Park in New York City, David launched a Russian food pop-up called Mama Galina in San Francisco’s Mission District. Bubbelah’s menu roams the globe, from khachapuri, a dish from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, to kebabs of beef, chicken and fish. But David’s khachapuri, a boat-shaped bread that usually has melted cheese and a runny egg in the middle, features feta, mozzarella, spring onions and poppy seeds instead. “This combo made sense to me,” he notes. “I wanted feta for the zing and brininess, mozzarella for the meltiness and the poppy seeds reminded me of New York bialys. I like to make something my own.” His kebabs, made of meat or white fish like cod or rockfish, aren’t served on skewers. Instead, they’re tucked inside pita or lavash wraps that contain
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