CookNSolo conquer Philly

days before , i ’ d stood high in the ruins of the kastro , gazed over the church ’ s rooftop ,

Marigold Kitchen’s backyard ran up to its rear neighbor’s garage, and over the summer of 2007, Steve Cook and Mike Solomonov would sit on its roof, blow cigarette smoke into the sticky West Philly atmosphere and sketch out the bones of what would become the city’s most celebrated restaurant.

“We had plenty of time since nobody came and ate there on the weekdays,” Solomonov remembers with a wry laugh. Despite the acclaim falling at this avant-garde BYOB’s doorstep like the overripe apricots and plums heavy on the neighborhood’s ancient trees, “we were doing seven covers on a Tuesday, and whatever Steve was paying me was probably a hundred percent more than he could afford.”

Working opposite hours of his wife, Shira, a teacher, and making little money, Cook burned out of being a chef-owner not long after opening Marigold in 2004. “It was the hardest year of work I ever had,” he says. “In addition to being very stressful, it was very lonely.” He’d heard about Solomonov, an acquaintance of Shira’s from their childhoods in Pittsburgh, and brought him in to run the kitchen. He wasn’t looking for a wunderkind to propel Marigold to the next level, just a warm body, someone “capable of running this business while I could take time to figure out what I wanted to do,” he says. “Somebody that I, frankly, didn’t need to manage.” business guy,” the left brain to Solonomov’s right, and together they settled into a professional rhythm and personal relationship shaped by their shared Jewish heritage and ideas about food. “I don’t think it took very long for us to develop a relationship that seemed like it had more of a future than just Marigold.”

The future, “it was just sort of there,” Solomonov says, “hanging over our heads.”

The hummus was smooth as buttercream. Its obscene ratio of tahini to chickpeas gave it depth and presence, a sun orbited by little bowls of dazzling vegetable meze. It came with a steaming disc of laffa, a little-known Iraqi flatbread, freckled with za’atar, a little-known Levantine spice. It was 2008. Solomonov and Cook had just opened Zahav in Society Hill, and the notion of Israeli cuisine was not a thing in the American restaurant industry. The hummus, people understood. The rest of the menu took a minute.

“Zahav definitely didn’t hit right away,” Cook says. “We had put literally everything we had into the restaurant, so there was no reservoir of capital for an extended ramp-up period. Mike’s dad cut us a check for ten grand because we were probably within one [period] of not being able to make payroll.”

Cook wasn’t looking for a future business partner and best friend either and for a while, he avoided the restaurant. When he did return, he found his office buried in unpaid invoices. Instead of the mess compounding his stress, it gave him a sense of direction. The Wharton business grad thought, “I actually know how to do this stuff; I can understand this side of it.” It was his way back in—through chaos, order. “That’s how I became the

“That was a horrible feeling,” Solomonov says. “There was so much going on in my personal life, too. I was struggling with addiction, and everything was falling apart,” while Zahav, a 100-seat sandstonehued dining room, was serving less than 20 guests on weeknights. He and Cook gave it six months. Fortunately, that’s when Solomonov got sober and when the press started to roll in, local at first, the interior of k far the donuts of federal donuts opposite page : steve cook and michael solomonov inside k ’ far philly the interior of cooknsolo ’ s laser wolf in brooklyn then national within the year, along with a James Beard Rising Star nomination for Solomonov. The dining public’s passion for the hummus never dimmed, but new stars emerged—the coal-kissed duck hearts, the salty halloumi with candy-sweet dates, the smoked and braised lamb shoulder lacquered in pomegranate molasses—and formed a constellation that made Zahav the center of Philly’s culinary universe.

They never had to cash that check.

If the story of Cook and Solomonov were a movie, it would be time for the montage: the tuxedoed duo at the Beard Awards, bringing home Best Chef MidAtlantic (2011), Outstanding Chef (2017) and Outstanding Restaurant (2019); Solomonov roaming Tel Aviv and Galilee for the PBS documentary The Search for Israeli Cuisine; cookbook pages running furiously off the printer; new restaurants opening (Federal Donuts, Dizengoff, Abe Fisher, Golide, Merkaz, K’Far, Laser Wolf), others sold off, others closed altogether; the gang expanding to (then retreating from) Miami and conquering New York.

Producers would overlay this flurry of activity with the Cam’ron and TLC tracks that made Zahav feel like a Millennial prom party and intersperse them with lingering slo-mos of Solomonov at the bread station, pressing his fingers into the pliable laffa dough. His first food job was at a bakery in Israel. Making bread at Zahav is a meditation and a spiritual link, to his time abroad and to his brother, David, who he lost in 2003.

“This food represents the blood, sweat and tears of actual people, and it represents a culture a lot of people can identify with,” Cook says. “This concept was not created in a corporate boardroom.” It was created on the hot roof of a garage in West Philadelphia.

Solomonov remembers one of their early business plans for Zahav. To court investors, Cook wrote a line that 16 years later feels prescient: Israeli food will be the next big thing, the next food trend. “He was completely full of it,” Solomonov laughs, “but it actually turned out.” this page : the interior of zahav , the restaurant that launched an empire . next page : cooknsolo ’ s latest , k ’ far in brooklyn .

Istarted my career thinking I’d be a fashion or music/portrait photographer but my love for food, cooking, and the culture surrounding it pulled me in. All through school I worked in restaurants, learning from all types of friends, both front and back of house, as well as friends who happened to be farmers or other producers. It really clicked for me when one of my first full time jobs required me to shoot a food review each week for a small local publication in Philly. I went all around town shooting this vibrant food town and all these dedicated craftsman making and serving food that they loved. It was amazing!

Travel and the opportunity to constantly meet passionate people doing what they love is my favorite part of the job. We all have that zest for life and I cannot get enough of it being around like-minded food people.

To take really great food shots that pop, I’d say try your best to show it in a way that would get you super excited about seeing that photo. That could be the light, or other things on the table, shooting friends/people to remember the moment... it’s really interpretive. It could even be a food fail–think dropping ice cream off of the cone. The story of making (or messing up) is a lot of the fun too. It’s an experiential thing at its core, so let that come through however possible.

Beyond that: composition is key, of course, but also those other elements in frame have to compliment the story. That’s important. Pizza with some grated cheese and hot pepper flake sort of spilled and scattered. A drink with condensation and a squeezed lime to the side...a bid for that "lived in look.” If that’s not your vibe maybe it’s a perfectly sliced lime still atop the drink, and the pizza gooey and steaming, ready to eat...no mess. Again, this is all really interpretive. What makes you excited?

As for lighting a shot, I’d say tend toward a nice clean singular source. Natural light can do incredible things for food. Figure out if you want it to be hard or soft and find some great spots inside (or outside) your house and have them in mind when you want to photograph your dish. I like my light to come somewhere from the top half of the frame...it’s a great start and usually makes the food look great.

But most of all I think being curious and experimental is really important. I still remind myself every day, every shoot— every phone photo, even—to try and find another way to shoot whatever is in front of me. I take a look around and check in with my surroundings to see what else is possible. Some of my best photos have been a result of that "What if we ran over there!" curiosity. That’s not just limited to photos... I try to live that way however I can, too.