EATING OUR FEELINGS
crime shows, while her husband and children buy a whole chick- en and make matzah ball soup. As with many Jews, the emotion- al bond with this soup goes back to her youth. Born in France and raised among two sets of Holocaust- survivor grandparents, Ostrow recalls childhood Shabbat din- ners that were a mix of French and Ashkenazi comfort food: gefilte fish with horseradish, pot au feu — meat braised in stock on the stovetop, which Ostrow de- scribes as akin to a French ver- sion of brisket—and, of course, challah dipped in chicken soup. These indelible family dinners gave her a lifelong hunger for classic French and Jewish cook- ing. “Everything in my child- hood food was comfort food,” she says, “which translates in my food today. Even at the restau- rant, which is fine dining. I like to say that my restaurant is a fine comfort food.” In 2023, the chef opened Ostrow Brasserie in Miami, a restaurant she is keen to iden- tify as serving French food that is kosher rather than the other way around. French cooking, famously, relies on heavy doses of butter the way the Earth re- lies on the sun. Asked how she navigates without it, Ostrow says there are two magic words: duck fat. (She has also concoct- ed a butter alternative that she uses in a few dishes; it’s a reci- pe she prefers to keep secret un- til the cookbook she’s writing is published.) Aside from these substitu- tions, her restaurant is strictly French: there is no matzah ball soup on the menu, none of the
Maztah balls are best made by touch rather than measure- ment; a little olive oil on your hands will make it easier to roll them out.
ungapatchka that many kosher restaurants indulge in, trying to offer something for everyone or dress up old standards. “I’m not a fusion person,” says Os- trow. “In my restaurant, there’s no smoke coming out of your steak. I don’t put sushi on my en- dive and blue cheese salad.” It’s
a sense of purity that cuts both ways: just as much as she isn’t going to dilute French classics, she says, “I’m not going to make a Thai or Chinese version of my matzah ball soup.” And so, Ostrow taught her husband and children to prepare her favourite comfort food to her
48 SUMMER 2025
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