Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley, leading lights of the Ottolenghi empire, talk about their new book of Palestinian food
Sami Tamimi was 17 when he moved out of his family home in East Jerusalem’s Old City. He was gay and he knew his Muslim father especially would struggle to accept that. “I was an angry kid,” recalls Tamimi, who is now 52, at one of his restaurants, Rovi in central London. “Because of the whole sexuality thing, I couldn’t talk about it to anybody. But I come from a different place now. I had a lot to prove. And I did it. I’m not angry now. The opposite.”
Tamimi worked in West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv before moving to London in 1997 where he was head chef at the deli Baker & Spice. Here he met Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli who also grew up in Jerusalem. Ottolenghi left in 2001 to start his own place, and Tamimi joined not long after; they have been business partners ever since.
Continue reading...