Chef Alon Shabo

“It was a simple chocolate cake. The kind that’s for birthdays, topped with colorful sprinkles. It was the first cake I ever made by myself. I can imagine it all as if it’s happening to me now. Every gram of sugar, measured precisely, every piece of chocolate, cut perfectly, and every task accompanied with a kind of holy awe, because this is the feeling that I got from those recipe books – that precision is important. So I immersed myself in the task – I whipped, I folded, I melted the chocolate, and I mixed everything thoroughly. The baking steps were accompanied by repeated examinations and testing with a toothpick until the cake was ready.

This situation was so important to me because it symbolized, at that point, a type of excitement I couldn’t describe with words. The creation of something really big that only seemed simple.

Even I was surprised by the level of seriousness I invested in the task at that moment. I was focused on a target and completely absorbed in preparing that cake.

After I finished making it, I didn’t even need to taste it. I just needed to show it and be proud of what I had created.

Now I understand that that was only the beginning of the excitement of the act creation, through manual labor and from the level of precision that was needed. Luckily, that excitement has never gone away.”

Alon Shavo is a pastry chef at the Shulchan (Table) restaurant in Tel Aviv. Alon draws his passion and inspiration from classic French cuisine, into which he infuses a spirit of life through a combination of styles, flavors, colors and meticulous aesthetic. Alon graduated from cooking school and gives workshops.