On a recent weekday afternoon, a sold-out sign hung across the take-out window at one of the hottest new eateries in the San Fernando Valley. A banner stretched across the eatery’s outdoor wall was printed with the Wikipedia definition of a boreka.
A few feet away, a young couple munched on the savory Israeli street-food while seated on crates under the shaded awning of a strip mall. A leashed dog lounged at his owner’s feet, exuding an aura of chill.
This was the site of Bo-Re-Kas Sephardic Pastries. Since opening in an 800-square-foot kitchen on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks last year, the kosher-certified takeout spot has introduced borekas, a baked pastry, to Angelenos in the Valley. They’ve garnered the love of local foodies in the process; evidenced by the near-constant lines of people outside the takeout window.
Co-owned by Uzi and Gal Wizman, Bo-Re-Kas opened in October 2022 and has since attracted considerable attention on social media and by local news outlets – “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot gave the Israeli-owned business a shout-out on her Instagram page. Credit goes to chef Uzi’s flaky, mouthwatering treats, which are made with butter instead of the typically used margarine or oil.
The result is a lighter, even healthier taste, Uzi’s wife, Gal, says.
“It feels cleaner,” she said. “You don’t get the heavy taste afterward.”
The menu at Bo-Re-Kas is simple and offers four choices of fillings: Ricotta cheese with Za’atar spice, which is their most popular; fungi, onion, and truffle; feta with spinach; and potato and brown sugar. Served in cardboard pizza boxes, each order of borekas comes with schug, a Yemenite sauce; tomato pulp; a hardboiled egg; and a pickle. The result — a hearty, no-frills Israeli culinary experience in the San Fernando Valley—is sababa (excellent). “It’s becoming cool,” Gal told the Journal. “It’s becoming one of those places that everyone wants to go to.”
Uzi – who also owns kosher burger restaurant Psy, located in the same strip mall in Sherman Oaks – said the appeal of the borekas are near-universal, which perhaps explains why there’s debate among food scholars over where borekas come from originally.
“Everyone has flour,” he said. “Everyone has oil. Everyone has dough. Everyone has made something similar, so everyone can say, ‘It’s coming from my country.’ ‘No, it’s coming from my country.’ No, it’s not,” Uzi insisted. “It’s from everywhere.”
The Haifa native’s borekas are inspired, in part, by a café in the northern Israeli port city called Borekas Ha’agala.
With the eatery’s growing popularity, there’s the obvious question: do Uzi and Gal have plans to expand beyond the popular takeout business they’ve started? The husband and wife team suggested the affirmative while declining to provide additional details.
When they do expand, changes will be on the horizon, including how they handle the all-important ingredient of dough.
“Hopefully when we expand, we’ll be able to make it in-house, but here we don’t have the room,” Gal said.
Reinforcing the casual, shuk-like Israeli atmosphere of the eatery, located at 15030 Ventura Boulevard, between Kester Ave. and Sepulveda Blvd., Bo-Re-Kas is open every day until they sell out. Generally, this happens sometime between 1-3 p.m. People are encouraged to call ahead to place their order, at (818) 688-4588, or send a message directly via Instagram at instagram.com/bo.re.kas.
While borekas have become decidedly Israeli, and Bo-Re-Kas is certified kosher — a mashgiach (kosher supervisor) was onsite when the Journal dropped by to sample the goods — the little-restaurant-that-could is attracting food-lovers beyond the Jewish community. Which could be due, in part, to the treat’s similarity to another popular ethnic food that’s ubiquitous in Los Angeles.
“It touches a lot of people because every nation has some kind of dough that’s stuffed with something.” – Gal Wizman
“It touches a lot of people because every nation has some kind of dough that’s stuffed with something,” Gal said. “So, everyone can relate. Everyone can be like, ‘Oh, it’s like empanadas.’ ‘No, it’s like burek [the family of pastries found in the Balkans, Middle East and Asia].’ You can literally find it everywhere.
“So, people can connect with it,” she continued. “Even if they’re not Israeli or have never heard of borekas, they taste it, and it reminds them of something they know. It’s cool. It’s nice people find their home, I guess, that way.”
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