Buttering the city up with the power of tahini
At Parallel, brothers showcase their high-quality, cold-pressed sesame paste in various dishes
New food businesses love to hang their concept on a hot new food trend. Splashy pics and an interesting narrative will have us craving charcoal ice cream, and loaded poutine and pierogies.
The brothers behind Parallel, a new restaurant on Geary Ave. near Dufferin St. would like you to get addicted to sesame butter, a.k.a. tahini. It’s not nearly as photogenic — or caloric — as many of the latest treats, but it’s got potential just the same.
“Our goal is to introduce sesame butter to North America,” says Guy Ozery, one of the three brothers partnering in this new venture. He’s working with big brother Alon, and youngest Aharon.
The plan is to manufacture high quality, coldpressed sesame paste in a range of flavours and styles, and wholesale it across the continent, as well as develop an audience for sesame-butter products such as halva. “So little is known about the use of it, so we opened a restaurant to showcase it,” he adds.
For those who already make their own hummus, tahini dressing or routinely slather sesame butter on whatever, there’s a shelf at the front of the restaurant offering jars of the company’s products: pure, smoky and beet ($4.99 for12 oz). (Seeds are sourced from the Humera region of Ethiopia, as the brothers say they are the best in the world.)
The rest can start by checking out the menu put together by Alon with chef Tomer Markovitz, whom the brothers call a “food genius.” Here, tahini shows up in a smoothie, along with banana and nuts ($9), the hamshuka, which is shakshuka (a tomato egg dish) served on a bed of hummus ($14) and in arais, a lamb and beef kebab-filled pita, dressed with tahini ($14).
Word has it that Markovitz’s herb falafel is the best around ($10). Expect more creations as the restaurant, which is currently only open for weekday lunches, expands to offer brunch and then dinner.
Most menu items come with generous offerings of pita bread, all courtesy of the Ozery Bakery, the family’s other business.
That dates back to1996 when dad Al and Alon, along with Alon’s wife, Hadas, opened a sandwich shop in downtown Toronto. Customers loved the thick, tasty pita they served, often spiked with ingredients such as flax and garlic — there wasn’t much on the market at the time.
Two years later — with middle brother Guy now involved (he became a full partner later) — they opened up a manufacturing facility in Vaughan.
Now, Ozery Bakery runs a 100,000square-foot facility with about 200 staff members and sells its bread products across North America.
But entrepreneurs are seldom happy with straightforward success. In 2016, Guy opened Sweat and Soda with his wife, Yoona Hong. (She takes care of the day-to-day for that still-thriving business on Queen St. E.).
“We wanted to innovate, do new things,” Guy says of their plan to come up with yet another family concept.
A few years ago, Alon was on a trip to Israel — the brothers were born in Canada and grew up in Israel — and called home one day. “How about tahini?”
Middle Eastern treats such as falafel, baba ganoush and kebab were seeing a spike in popularity in the U.S., the brothers knew, and of course, sesame paste synced up well with the famous Ozery Bakery pita.
Around this time, youngest brother Aharon came home from a stint in Germany and Israel as a working artist. He took over the design of the new space (and he runs it day-to-day while Alon splits his time between the two businesses and Guy gets involved in big-picture strategy and focuses mostly on the bakery).
Aharon came up with the name: The 2,500-square-foot location backs into the tracks, running parallel to them. He opened up the back of the restaurant so when the train goes by, it’s like a moving art piece framed by large windows.
He favoured raw metals and wood for the look. Above the main counter he mounted one of his creations: an aluminum sculpture that’s circular in shape.
It mimics one of the most impor- tant features in the 70-seat restaurant: a stone mill that cold presses the sesame seeds right in front of customers. (The stone rotates on a base, which is technically parallel too, so that’s another inspiration for the name.) You can watch it rotate and smell the rich, nutty aroma as the butter gets made.
Yes, the mill’s pretty cool and sesame has an interesting story, as do the brothers behind this venture. Sesame butter may lack social-media sizzle, but it’s healthy, tasty and versatile.
It may even have what it takes to go beyond a trend and turn into a North American staple.