Stephan, Viennese cafe and pastry shop, Tel Aviv/Stephen
Five years after its opening, "Stephen Austrian" completed its absorption process in Israel and turned from an ice cream parlor into a full-time cafe, a real Austrian patisserie, which still highlights its great ice cream, but knows that it is only part of the story.
A major episode indeed, but not the main reason why people hit the binge button.
About a decade after his landing in Israel, Stefan Macher also completed his assimilation process in Israel and transformed from an Austrian with civilized European manners to a Tel Avivian with exactly the same manners (I think I bought him forever with only my five-minute introduction to the meeting between us), but with a smiling acceptance around him him. He loves the weather and likes living here very much in general, until on his last visit to Vienna he found himself complaining about the quiet. Seriously.
Yes, the adaptation of Stefan Austrian and Stefan Macher is complete, but not final. Absolute in every sense, yet given for changes. Like his strudel, there is no way to improve it, and nothing to add. Like the strudel, every day it is better.
The adaptation is complete.
Stefan
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This story is a story of love, and adventure, and loves that are strong enough to go on adventures together.
Macher is a biotechnologist who worked at Pfizer and at one point held the position of the European pharmaceutical giant's top Viagra person.
He met with Keren Alon in a way that surely increased the two's mutual trust in serendipity, and continued with her to Israel, and to work in nature.
the ice cream?
It was merely his birthday present from her, in the form of a course of study in Italy, intended to meet some kind of passion that he expressed at that time.
This gift, as it almost goes without saying, is the kind that never stops giving.
If you want to be cynical, say that it also takes quite a bit - hours of work and energy, and dealings up to the level of "WTF have we done to ourselves", as she defined it - but this is not a story for cynics, as mentioned, but a story for lovers.
"If only to be good"
The couple who dreams of rotten cookies in the roughest part of the city
To the full article
A love that depends on nothing but chocolate maybe.
Stefan/Amir Menachem
"Stephan" opened about six months before the corona virus, and was one of those businesses that decided to grit their teeth and try to survive the epidemic after all.
"You just start and that's it," repeated Alon, "and amidst the closures and everything, we decided to check with ourselves what is good and what is strong, what can work in these conditions and what will help us last."
They started introducing Austrian desserts to the menu, made all kinds of strudel and created "Vienna Mix", a slightly different delivery package, which was a stamp on the collective need for comfort and the obsessive craving for sweets.
"Then we made our deliveries ourselves, and we realized that there is something here, that it works and that we need to strengthen it."
So, without knowing it of course, the confectionary buds that bloom today on Tschernihovsky Street in Tel Aviv were also planted.
"We realized there was something here."
Stefan's/Gil Aviram's strudels
"It was a piece of organization, and in the end a new and different place was created. We feel that it is like a baby that suddenly starts walking and you walk along with it and watch it develop"
It was easy for them to give up the ice cream, although it is important to clarify that there is not really a "giving up" on ice cream here, but rather a focus and refinement, something like a dozen flavors compared to the 18 that were here from the opening, with all the hits and creations based on seasonal, fruity and European and topped off with a delicate handmade ice cream Poppy and Linzer ice cream and blue vanilla ice cream and pistachio ice cream.
But yes, six flavors less is a story, and also time that is freed up for the glass showcase that expanded with the last renovation.
"We wanted to change the atmosphere of the whole place," they said, "so that it would feel more like a cafe and encourage matching of ice cream next to the cake and next to the dessert. It was a piece of organization, and in the end a new and different place was created. We feel that it is like a baby that suddenly starts walking and you go along with it and watching it develop."
The result, "Vienna Corner Tel Aviv Strasse", as they define it, is the brainchild of a newcomer who has seemingly already been here, the type of tasks that are very easy in brief and very challenging in execution.
Studio OPA, the implementers of the vision, established Austrian elements on the sunny street and designed small Viennese alleys that somehow start and end in the "Stephen" areas, including both old and modern wooden benches, great views and slight hints of an almost absurd urban connection between the two capital cities.
Macher himself drew this line years ago.
Now it's just clearer, almost natural.
"Vienna Corner Tel Aviv Strasse".
Stefan/Amir Menachem
"Until the last day, she told him that you open the strudel dough until you can read newspaper through it."
That huge, imperialistic showcase, almost operatic in its characteristics, echoes well-known transparent glass companies from Vienna, but makes it playfully Israeli.
There is a large selection here that is still only allusions to the almost absurd offering of his homeland's desserts, including the Astahazi cake (layers of almond meringue with a butter-vanilla cream in between, decorated with a layer of cream sugar and dark chocolate), Linzer nut-cherry tart, Cardinal Schnitt (layers of sponge cake and meringue and a thin layer of homemade raspberry jam with vanilla Chantilly cream (because it wasn't fancy enough until that moment) and also a tall crème shnit or a chestnut torte that is only sweet, mature, foreign.
On the side, we wait with the confidence of those who know strudels. The dough arrives From Macher's grandmother, who passed away six months ago at the age of 102, and left behind one request-wish-demand. "Until the last day, she told him that you open the strudel dough until you can read newspaper through it." They don't keep this sacred value. "Almost in no cafe have I seen dough being opened on a table, like it used to be.
only at home
and see it.
You feel and taste the difference."
And no, there are no raisins in his strudel. That's what he knows, and that's how grandma made it at home. What there are are buttery and crunchy versions, open and transparent, mysterious and hidden secrets, including sweet and sour apples, apricots and cheese, pears and almond cream, And a strong need to order a plane ticket, and take another slice on the road.
Flight without a passport.
Stefan/Stefan
In the morning hours (10:00-12:00) on weekdays, the temptations increase even more, with what is defined here as an Austrian breakfast", and can actually be defined as "take a coffee and come for a week just for the smell of butter wafting from the back kitchen".
In practice, this translates For good things that can't survive shipping, and that need an immediate, direct attack. Kaiserschmaren ("Emperor's rags", in German), for example, which are happy tears of thick pancakes with plum jam and whipped cream, or flächenken, the Austrian version of blintzes that is, of course, spread with jam Homemade apricot or chocolate and whipped cream, and also a salty strudel rich in spinach, chard and feta, with sour cream on the side.
Austrian silence wanted.
Macher/Amir Menachem
The most popular cake, the most In, today in Vienna, according to Macher, is the one Cardinal Schnitt.
"All the cakes there go back to the 18th century in a kind of revival, but traditional. In general, the Austrians as a people like to live in the past. They were a mighty empire, and hardly a day goes by without celebrations for Mozart and celebrations for Beethoven."
In practice, however, this means there aren't many innovations.
"Here and there you will find a patisserie that came from France, say, but in houses in Vienna they still bake a new cake every day, and every day they also eat all of this cake," they described, "It is not clear how they have so much time to bake, but it happens."
This destination, which gained popularity and a huge traffic of visitors from Tel Aviv in recent years, reciprocated with Israelis who landed here after the trip, and directly looked for a place that would recreate for them that Viennese cafe, and that moment of silence, and of cake. "Now you already know what to ask for.
They come back and want Zacher and Kaiserschmaren and strudel of course.
For them, it's already a global, international dessert."
That's how it is, apparently - waves of private shows expand into community movements and create entire social effects that eventually come together at a round table in the morning. One day an audition on "Master Chef" exposes Israelis to the gramkoodle dumplings, and the next day they are taken out in "Stefan" green boxes for the street to satisfy the demand, or coolers with ice cream cakes.
"In Vienna, life is very comfortable and very easy," compares Alon, "there is almost no traffic and no cars in the city center, and half a floor down you get on a ticking public transportation system.
The women there get a two-year maternity leave, university studies are free and to help with the cost of living each of the citizens there has now received 500 euros."
This gap cannot be closed with strudel. They know. But you can try. True, everything here is noisy and hectic and dizzying, But when the doors close behind you and the eyes open in front of you, you feel a bit of that Austrian silence. Especially if you give up reading the newspaper from below. Adaptation, that's the secret.
Stefan, Tschernihovsky 21, Tel Aviv, Sunday-Saturday 10:00-20:00, 03-6799788
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strudel