This Israeli Chef 'Found Healing By Connecting With People Over Food'

Shai Lavi has re-created the family dining experience from his home in Israel that never felt lonely or solitary.

Shai Lavi is an Israeli immigrant and the founder/chef of The Third Space in Atlanta. His culinary concept offers diners a place to nourish their soul through food and community. Lavi wanted to re-create the family dining experience from his home in Israel that never felt “lonely” or solitary and ate farm-to-table ingredients. Strangers sit at a long table and talk to each other, and there are no set menus or limited portions.

Lavi hosts advocacy events almost every week and offers assistance and counseling to culinary industry professionals through various organizations including Care.org, The Giving Kitchen and The Cooks Collective. In this edition of Voices In Food, Lavi shares how, since the war in Israel began, he has been focusing his efforts in bringing comfort through food to those affected physically and emotionally, including himself.

When my wife and I moved from Israel to the United States, we felt very disconnected. To understand the dining scene and meet new people in the industry, I ate at the hottest and best restaurants in Atlanta, but always felt that there was a missed connection to the food that I was eating. It lacked a personal touch that I was used to. I realized that most restaurants were run like mini corporations where cooks only cared about keeping up with the flow of the kitchen to churn out dishes and often had no clue of where their products were coming from. Butchers had never raised an animal and didn’t have deep compassion for the life they were serving. Chefs who had never stepped on a farm lacked intention when it came to food waste. We spoke a common language but didn’t share the same passion as cooks.

The definition of community I grew up with did not exist here as much. Back home in Or Yehuda, Israel, I had a relationship with my butcher since childhood. I stood in line at 4 a.m. to get the first stock of fish. My mother had a list of micro sources and she would have me drive for two hours to go pick up eggs in exchange for sweaters she knit. My father and I would nourish the lambs on the farm that we consumed at feasts. And it’s not just me, everyone in Israel understands and lives this way, to various degrees.

When I left, I realized how much I missed it.