PARK Magazine

DINING
HaSalon
A “HEART-OPENING”
APPROACH TO FINE DINING
BY ALEX LEI
PHOTOGRAPHED BY MELISSA HORN
According to HaSalon founder Chef Eyal
Shani, he is in “the heart-opening
business,” a Hebrew expression akin to
trusting your intuition and building a system
driven by purpose. Since its inception in 2008,
the trending Middle Eastern-inspired hot spot
featuring an innovative and varied menu has
always tread an unconventional path when it
comes to its business operation and growth.
Shani and Shahar Segal, a noted film director
and actor, had originally met on the set of a
popular food show and decided to move the
original HaSalon restaurant to a warehouse
district in Tel Aviv where people could feast on
the latest flavors of Shani’s latest culinary
innovations while dancing to Segal’s DJ sets.
What started as a fun, biweekly experiment,
began growing deliciously quickly. It’s
not uncommon for mere mortals
wanting to savor their mouth-watering
plates to have to wait up to six months
for a table.
A Manhattan outpost of the avantgarde
brainchild of two creative minds,
the downtown HaSalon NYC location
certainly lives up to its pedigree. With a
dimly- lit space, intimately set tables, an open
kitchen framed by a ten-meter-long counter
space stacked with a medley of colorful
produce and a tongue-in-cheek “DISPLAY
ONLY” sign scribbled across the top in a
sensual shade of wine red, the set up evokes
Darren Bader’s installation “Fruits, Vegetables:
Fruit and Vegetable Salad’’ instead of a
restaurant. What the New York conceptualist
and Shani do share is their philosophy when it
comes to food; while the former produces
sculptures exhibited on the 8 th floor of the
Whitney Museum by topping pedestals with
carrots, pumpkins and kumquats, the latter
takes tomatoes (the best of which should come
“naked” according to the menu) and pairs them
with tender rib chops as well as chewy octopus