“The food!” Jude Akpunku is talking about warm pitas stuffed with steak and tahini, and cauliflower so tender it can be scooped with a spoon at new-to-Dallas Mediterranean restaurant Miznon.
“I almost cried when I ate the food,” he said.
Miznon’s Dallas operator Akpunku has plenty to say about the restaurant that started in Tel Aviv, Israel, by eccentric chef Eyal Shani. But the food: The food is where the conversation should start.
And, indeed, a few days before the Deep Ellum restaurant opened, chefs were teaching new cooks the recipes now shared at Miznons across the world — in Vienna, Paris, Melbourne, Singapore and more. Each of those outposts serves pitas in small brown bags, mostly at walk-up counters.
In Dallas, Miznon is an entire restaurant — a former Postino wine bar in Deep Ellum — where diners can sit down at tables covered in brown butcher paper. To eat like Miznon’s chefs do, take the to-go wrappers off the bag of grilled brisket and onions and tumble the ingredients on a silver tray. Order the swords of lamb skewers to share. Then, dig in: Grab a greasy onion, tear open a pita, and stuff meat, tahini and pepper sauce into it.
“Everything here is designed to be eaten with your hands,” said Liad Balki, head of culinary operations.
Miznon opens March 30, 2024 in Dallas and will be the first one in the southern part of the United States. Akpunku expects to open at least one more in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in a northern suburb. He has the franchise rights to expand across Texas.
It’s Akpunku’s first restaurant opening. He’s a Cedar Hill native, reintroducing himself to the Dallas area after working in public policy in Washington D.C. and in the Middle East. He’s even considering running for Dallas mayor. “I want to do some really cool things in Dallas,” he said.
Miznon is known around the world because of its chef-founder Shani. He’s been a judge on MasterChef Israel and owns more than 40 restaurants. For years, his style of food was intricate, expensive dinners using Mediterranean ingredients, like at Port Sa’id in New York and North Abraxas in Tel Aviv, Vienna, Singapore and London. After a diner complimented him on the pita, he asked himself: Why not open a casual restaurant centered around, as he calls it, “the most genius bread in the world”?
“It changed everything in my life,” he told The Dallas Morning News.
“When I opened the pita shop [in Tel Aviv] and I made the decision to serve it as cheap as I can, suddenly, all the young people who were so passionate about my food began to eat my food.”
When Miznon expanded from Israel to France, he stuffed beef bourguignon in a pita. And snails. In Vienna, it’s schnitzel pita. In New York, a cheeseburger pita. In Dallas, the new item on the menu is lamb short rib pita, and the customer will have to pull the bone out of the sandwich before taking a bite.
“The pita is one of the best translators of a culture. Of a city. Into a food,” Shani said.
What to eat at Miznon in Dallas
Shani’s obsession with vegetables is evident by the array of tomatoes and Italian Long Hot peppers in the center of each table, as decor.
There’s a definitely a street food attitude at Miznon, but diners should consider getting a cocktail, an appetizer and some shareable mains. One starter is the charred beetroot carpaccio ($11), which looks like thinly shaved beef, but it’s actually a vegetarian dish with earthy beets. Shaved horseradish and coarse salt give each floppy maroon piece some crunch.
Another that can be shared — or not — is a paper bag of chicken with rustic shreds of mint, parsley and dill, tossed in lemon juice, olive oil and salt. Sac de Coq, as it’s called, is a bright and healthy salad ($21) that seemed to be a favorite among chefs.
The Bag of Golden Meat ($19) is just as it sounds: brisket, in a bag. Each greasy helping is tangled with seared onions and served with a spoonful of tahini on the side. There’s no need to get cute with either of these items: Eat it with your hands like chef Balki did.
The Original World Famous Baby Cauliflower ($12) shouldn’t be missed. Each are blanched in salty water. “You know when the ocean hits you, the taste of the water? That’s how we want the water to be for the cauliflower,” said executive sous chef May Carolyn Oyangoren. You can almost hear Shani saying that, too. Each head of cauliflower is served buttery soft (from olive oil, not butter) and lightly charred.
And then, of course, there’s the pita, which chefs don’t bake in house. The opening menu calls for 12 versions to fill each pita, like wild mushrooms and scallions, and branzino with potatoes to falafel. The Rib Eye Minute Steak ($21) is Akpunku’s favorite.
Halfway through the sandwich — when pickles, tomato, spicy green peppers, tahini and steak marry with the pita — is when you can get all the ingredients in one bite. Balki says that’s part of the fun of eating a pita from start to finish. “Every bite is not the same,” he said.
Because Miznon in Dallas is a larger restaurant than most around the world, the chefs will add a “feast” to be shared called the Long, Thick and Juicy Lamb Kebab ($45). Two 10-ounce kebabs are served on swords atop grilled onions, tahini and spicy green pepper sauce. It’s big and dramatic, and we can just picture diners around a table, reaching, picking, pulling and eating. And we can’t help but think Shani would be proud that his Israeli restaurant centered around the “humble pita” has made it all the way to a bar district in Texas.
Miznon is at 2639 Main St., Dallas. It opens March 30, 2024.
