While you may not associate Judaism with St. Valentine’s Day, any celebration that puts love center stage is a good thing.
“Especially as Jews, in a time where you know there’s a lot of hate, [we need] celebrating more than ever,” chef Olivia Ostrow of Miami’s Ostrow Brasserie, told The Journal. Her restaurant is the only kosher-French restaurant in the United States. “As chefs, we say ‘I love you’ with our food all the time … as a French person, our love language is food; this is how we express ourselves.”
Ostrow, who was born in Paris, grew up surrounded by a love and knowledge of food. She was introduced to Michelin-starred restaurants at the age of five. Her grandparents had vineyards, her father invested in restaurants, her family loved eating.
She was raised conservative — her father’s side kept kosher, her mother’s side did not — and went back and forth being kosher most of her life. In the 1990s, the family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Ostrow graduated high school at 15 and attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she earned her MBA.
When her father passed away, Ostrow moved back to France, before deciding to make Aliyah. “When I lived in Israel, I went full-on kosher,” she said.
Back in the United States for more than 20 years, Ostrow has helmed both kosher and non-kosher restaurants throughout her career. When COVID hit, she had several restaurants that were non-kosher, which she closed.
A few years ago, she decided it was time to “go back to the kosher love affair that I grew up with,” Ostrow said. “I started looking at a location, [and] the owner of the building happened to be Jewish and religious.”
The two decided to become partners. “It was faith and fate,” she said. Ostrow Brasserie opened in August 2023.
When asked what the biggest joy is of her French-kosher restaurant, Ostrow said this pragmatic question had a pragmatic answer that came with a date.
“I opened the restaurant about a month before Oct. 7, and [after] Oct. 7, a lot of people got divided even more,” she said. “I then realized that there was no place that I would rather be every night than surrounded by people that I could have a conversation with … and there was a sense of support that we all need from each other.”
She felt, more than ever, it was meant to be.
Most people do not associate kosher with French food, and there’s a reason: It’s difficult. Not only is French cuisine butter based, everything needs to be made from scratch in order to actually execute a dish, because there’s so many kosher laws, besides not mixing milk and meat.
“You have to only use kosher ingredients, the mushroom you want to use has to be certified and approved,” she said. “So we needed to be able to have a real team in place that really understands French cuisine and kosher cuisine, and have the passion that I have … I’ve been very successful at surrounding myself with the right people.”
And, while most people associate French with fancy, Ostrow calls her cuisine fine comfort food.
“The reason people outside of France don’t associate it with [comfort food] is because they’re not French,” she said.
For example, beef bourguignon is a stew of short rib and braised with wine.
“For us, growing up, it’s literally leftovers of the meat of the week that your mom puts in a pot in the oven, and then you eat that in front of the TV with mashed potatoes,” she said. “This is our comfort food.”
Ostrow Brasserie’s Valentine’s Day menu is inspired by Paris, Venice, Rome and Kyoto, so she shared her recipe for Heart-Shaped Raviolo (ravioli) below. And, since Valentine’s Day is on Shabbat this year, her restaurant will be celebrating on the 13th.
Wherever you are in the world you can actually celebrate twice: pre-Valentine’s Day and then again on shabbat. Who doesn’t need another reason to highlight love, comfort food and family?
“The heart-shaped pasta [is] linked with our celebration of love for Valentine’s; we are a French restaurant [and] Paris is the city of love, which is where I come from,” she said. “But I wanted to … represent [the most] romantic cities in the world.”
When you celebrate love, it “should be said in every language and in as many ways as possible,” Ostrow said.
Learn more at OstrowBrasserie.com and follow @OstrowBrasserie on Instagram.
For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:
Homemade Pasta with Artichoke & Crispy Pastrami Filling
Pasta Dough:
8 cups “00” flour
2 ½ cups semolina flour
9 whole eggs
A few drops of red food coloring (optional)
Filling:
1 lb (about 2 cups) artichoke hearts, chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp fresh thyme
Salt and pepper, to taste
3.5 oz (about ½ cup) crispy pastrami, finely chopped
Instructions:
1. Prepare the Filling:
Sauté the artichoke hearts in a pan until crispy.
Add the shallots, garlic, and thyme, cooking until fragrant.
Remove from heat, chop the mixture finely, and stir in the crispy pastrami. Set aside to cool.
2. Make the Pasta Dough:
On a clean surface, mix the “00” flour and semolina.
Form a well in the center and crack in the eggs. Add a few drops of red food coloring if using.
Gradually incorporate the flour into the eggs until a dough forms. Knead until smooth and elastic.
Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest for at least 30 minutes.
3. Assemble the Pasta:
Roll out the pasta dough to the desired thickness.
Place small portions of filling onto one sheet of pasta, leaving space between each.
Cover with another sheet of pasta and press around the filling to seal.
Cut into desired shapes (in this case, heart shaped)
4. Cook and Serve:
Boil in salted water for 2–3 minutes or until pasta floats.
Serve with your preferred sauce, such as a brown butter sauce or light cream sauce.
Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.