The new fatherhood to Ariel, the mental calculation he made at the Big Brother house, the abrasive shifts and the dream of his own culinary line: Chef Oren Asido explains why he left his home and baby restaurant, "Pupa", a year and three months after it opened
"When your name is up front and you are the interior of the restaurant - it's for better or worse."
Oren Asido
Photo:
Eric Sultan
Chef Oren Asido's third shift at Puppa Restaurant, a week after he left the Big Brother house, got out of hand. Who most of the year was the chef and interior of the place, was forced that evening to make a round of apologies.
"That week I had three shifts, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays," recalls Asido (27), the finalist of the last season of reality, "In the first shift I was received with hugs and kisses and also had a good service, and the second shift was also excellent.
" But on Thursday it was Chaos at a level that reached collapse. A collapse of waiters, of the bar, of hospitality. I found myself turning tables, and felt helpless. I remember a couple approached me and told me that they loved me very much but that they had been waiting a long time for the place and decided to leave. "
There are such evenings in every restaurant.
"Absolutely, but for me it was not a normal evening. It was an evening where the feelings were added to the feelings I had experienced for a long time. In the past, when such cases happened, I would do research, trying to figure out what happened to fix next time. But this time I let go. I did not. Want more of that stress. That evening I almost had an anxiety attack. I'm here to cook, not to get anxious.
"I went home and did not sleep all night. I woke up in the morning, and said to Annel, my wife, ‘I am mentally exhausted, I can no longer. I want to go back to the small, the intimate, and come home happy. This fifth was the stamp of the whole process I have been going through for a while, of fatherhood, of what I went through in 'Big Brother', of growing up and the desire for change. "
Can you put your finger on the moment when you have made a final decision?
"When we went to the first closure, and Anal was in an advanced pregnancy, even then something inside me started to boil. I did not know what to say, but I realized that I was going through something. After I left the fireplace house, Anal told me 'Oren, you know I will do anything for you, "In all the years we've been together, I have not seen you like this. You are not the same pine. Something in you has gone out."
Have you considered staying at a restaurant in another position?
"My first conversation with the owner about it was before the last closure. So I told him what I want, what I dream about and where I aspire to. He told me, 'I see you're not as happy as you were at first. I understand this is not your niche, and the decision is In your hands. 'He gave me all the options in the world for another position, like advising, but I felt it did not promote me. "
Were you afraid they would say you raised your hands too soon?
"Obviously, they might think I'm unstable and remind me of that, but for me Poppa was another lesson and another part of my path, and I have a lot more to go through. The most important point is that I stayed true to myself, no matter what the price and what the reactions were."
It's easy to think you're out of Big Brother, and suddenly the restaurant is small on you.
"Obviously, and there were reactions like that too. People told me, 'Here he's a minute out and he's already leaving,' 'He came out of the fireplace and it doesn't suit him,' but go explain to people that it's a year's process."
But "Big Brother" hastened the decision?
"Sure. There I realized that if I do not get up in the morning and come home in the evening with a smile, nothing is worth it to me. At the fireplace you do not have a phone, TV or Instagram, you only have yourself. You do not have alone, but you are the most alone in the world, and when that is the case You get to places with yourself that you don't have time to get to on a daily basis. "
When did you officially announce?
"The final decision was made on Friday, after that terrible shift. I called the owner and told him I wanted to talk to him before the Big Brother graduation party. We met, I explained and he wished me all the success in the world."
They say there is no such thing as an easy divorce.
"I had a very hard time. This is a place I renovated, at the brick wall level. I worked there for a year, learned a lot about myself and grew up and grew stronger. But I have not one bad word to say. Help me and support me and respect me all the way, including leaving. I wish. That they will continue to give in and I will help with what is needed. "
* * *
He lives in Kfar Saba, is married to Anal (25), a beautician, and the father of Ariel, seven months old. Ariel's birth is also one of the reasons that eventually led him to leave "Pupa". In contrast to reality, where he jumped from it to a dose of leaps and bounds to victory, this event was more complex and complicated.
"We arrived at the hospital in week 40, when Ianal with amniotic fluid and an estimated weight of 4,100 kg - and nothing moved," he recalls. For birth in isolation.
"Because it is impossible to have another escort, from that moment we did everything alone. On Friday and Saturday we were in the delivery room alone. Anal was for a long time in full opening until Ariel left. We were without our parents, without her mother.
"After the birth we were under supervision, but because of the corona the doctors did not shower the baby and did not replace him. Anal could not walk, and I found myself in one day showering a baby. No one taught me, I did what I saw but I also felt scared to death. I also had to shower her, and one day I went from an enthusiastic kid with a spoken restaurant, to someone who understands that these are the important things of life, and I got into it with all my might. "
The so-called, look on the positive side.
"And this is not the end. We left the hospital on Monday, and on Tuesday we went back for a check-up. Ariel was diagnosed with jaundice, and we stayed two more days. On Thursday we returned home, but the next day Anal did not feel well, and we arrived at the hospital again. "The covenant for Sunday, for fear of violating Shabbat. But on Sunday we entered a closure, and the covenant was at the end with a limited presence."
I was just tired of hearing.
"There are events in life that change and shape you. My first significant event in life was the military, which for me was a lesson in proportions. Then the birth and parenting, and also the 'Big Brother' house, where my routine was taken from me, changed my worldview and made me appreciate What there is.
”This transition is also part of my process as a person and a magician. Like you interviewed the arrogant pine who just flirts and laughs, now there is a slightly different pine. I went through a process and grew up, and being a father and a family man casts a spell on me as a human being and a magician. What suited me then does not necessarily suit me today. "
His first significant work was in Meir Adoni's" cult and "eatery" restaurants. Immediately after the victory in the "Chef's Games", he worked for two years at the "Palm" restaurant of the Assaf Granit group.
In August 2019, he took a significant step in his career, when he started working on the restaurant "PUPEE" (POUPEE - doll in French). The restaurant opened four months later, and is also used for parties and performances. For Asido, who was the chef and interior of the place and involved in every detail, it was nothing less than a dream come true - an evening that begins in a restaurant and ends in a club atmosphere.
"When I founded Pupa, there was an abnormal prey," he says. "The landlords gave me a free hand in everything, pardoned me and picked me up. There were great evenings and happy people, but I would come back sad from Serbia. I felt not good for myself. That I was not really doing what I wanted."
What did you fantasize about?
"The pupa is a combination of a club and a restaurant, and it's not that I did not know where I was going, but after a short time I felt it did not suit me. That I want to go with my heart, and when I say with the heart I mean I want to go with my culinary line."
What is the difference between the dishes you fantasize about,For those who came out in Popa?
"They were not a dream of my life. There were no dishes I hated to take out or was ashamed of, but it is not the suffering I go through, but the happiness I lose. It is not the dish I take out, but the one I want to take out and can not. For example, most diners in Pupa will not order couscous With Tanzania and seafood, because it's less related to the place. But it's exactly this food that I connect with.
"There were also challenges because of the size of the place. Because at some point in the evening the place becomes a club, the kitchen does close but the place continues to work, and you have no control over what happens. this is very frustrating. In a big place it is easier to make mistakes, and when your name is up front and you are the interior of the restaurant - it's for better or worse. So on the one hand there was a good review, and I was compared to Rafi Cohen, but there were also reviews that killed. "
Reviews will always be.
"True, but when it's a critique I can stand behind, it's fine. When every lamp, ceramic tile, grain of salt and a drop of alcohol instead I'm, and yet you did not like - I will learn to deal with it. When it's out of my control, it's hard for me to take responsibility."
Asido knows what he's talking about. A few days after leaving the Big Brother house, in early April, a post-viral post was posted on social media by a disgruntled customer, accompanied by a large picture of Asido under the headline "We fell victim to a sting that felt like a customer from the stories of old Istanbul."
The author of the post claimed that at a table invited to Popa for a birthday celebration, the guests were asked to pay 350 shekels per person in advance. They responded in the affirmative, but later found that if they had ordered the menu as regular guests at the restaurant, they would have been asked to pay much less. The post also reached "tweeting statuses", and won thousands of likes and hundreds of shares.
"By this point I had already informed the owner that I was leaving, but it had not yet been published and I had caught the fire. It's the kind of 'go explain you have no sister' situation.
" I received abusive messages, teasing conversations in the middle of the night, even my wife received messages on her Instagram.
It was already excessive, and at that level it no longer matters who is right, because it should not happen.
"If you read the post, you will also see that on the face of it nothing bad was written about me. They even wrote that they loved me in 'The Brother,' but there was a problem there and it was a pity that it got a much larger volume than it deserved."
Did you check what was there?
"From an inquiry I made there was a brief communication between the owner of the event and the restaurant manager. It's not right, and it's not supposed to happen, but between that and a post with a huge picture of me - it was no longer fair."
* * *
The latest interview with Asido was published here just before he entered the second entrance to the "Big Brother" house, where he broke a new record when he reached fourth place in the final - the highest place for a tenant entering at a second entrance.
Some people think that if you had entered at the first entrance, you would have gone further.
"The sympathy I received is insane. They hug me like they haven't hugged me in a long time. If after the chef's games I got unpleasant talkbacks of 'Arrogant' and 'Ars', and I understand why I got them because that's who I was at 24, now I get 'what a prince' "If you were not married I would match you to my daughter," "You are all heartbroken," you do not understand at all. And yet I would still enter at the second and not the first entrance. "
Explain.
"I am a man of work. I live and breathe a kitchen, and do not see myself doing anything else. And when I entered the 'fireplace house', the farm was closed and it was clear that the restaurant would not open soon, so I have the opportunity.
"Plus, at the first entry Ariel was only three months old, and there's no way I would have left him with Anal at this point that she's trying to figure out what it's like to be a mother."
How did you fit in?
"Half of the house were adults with children, and the other half were single, and at first I thought I was neither here nor here. But in the end I took it to a good place. I said to myself, 'There is no new father here, married, young.' So instead of being unrelated, I succeeded. "Connect with everyone. Lior, Zehava and Rami talked to me about the children, and on the other hand I had conversations about parties and relationships."
Just before you enter you promise not to cook, but that's the first thing you did there.
"True. I can talk until the next day, but until I live the moment, I can not really know what will happen. Cooking for the tenants helped me deal with the longing for family, and I cooked for them every Friday to feel at home."
What would you change during your time in "Brother"?
"My crying. I do not cry, and there I cried twice. Once when I talked to Anal and once when I talked about cooking. You know what, you could say I learned to cry. I cried there for a month and a half what I did not cry for ten years."
How much money did you get?
"It does not matter how much, but not an amount that covers the damage done to me in Corona. Anal did not work during pregnancy for fear of contracting, and did not return to work after giving birth. I did not work for a year, and still have to pay rent and property tax plus baby which is the best thing that happened to us "Everything we saved is over. If there was hope for our own home, at the moment it is out of the question."
Did you get job offers after leaving home?
"There were a lot of suggestions, and one of the first things I said to my agent was, 'Don't get excited, I don't want to be tempted, just take what corresponds with what I believe in.' I didn't come to do a hundred-meter run, but a marathon."
Maybe you missed out on good money.
"Maybe, but 'you caught multiple - you didn't catch'. I have a profession, I have a name, and I want to preserve them."
So what's next?
"The new place will be small and intimate. Me, with some unfamiliar friends. We are a group of people from the restaurant industry but from other aspects. Still looking for a place."
what is on the menu?
"I go back to the roots. It will be a modern Mediterranean cuisine with a Moroccan cuisine base. A kind of Moroccan hamara, fun, pleasant, sitting on the kitchen and at eye level."
erans@israelhayom.co.il
