Tasting Table Dinner With Alon Shaya

An Italian chef, an Israeli chef and a New Orleans chef walk into a dining room—oh, wait. It's just Alon Shaya.

It's been a marquee year for the Tel Aviv-born, Philly-raised chef. He won the James Beard Best Chef: South award for his work at Domenica, Pizza Domenica and the newly opened, much-lauded Shaya, all of which he co-owns with superstar chef John Besh. Now New Yorkers will have the chance to sample what all the fuss is about when Alon Shaya comes to the Tasting Table Test Kitchen in Soho on September 24 ($125 a person plus tax; get tickets here).

Shaya developed his restaurants' menus through intensive visits to the cuisines' countries of origins (even uprooting and moving to Italy for a year). He returned to New Orleans to create menu mash-ups that are all his own in the form of Domenica's rustic charcuterie and masterful deployment of seasonal vegetables (like the restaurant's signature roasted head of cauliflower), as well as Shaya restaurant's shakshuka (made there with Louisiana shrimp) and a hummus that's been described as "life changing" (we'll vouch for that).

For his dinner at the Test Kitchen, Shaya will be serving a one-night-only menu that's an homage to the cuisines he loves, brought together in unexpected, inventive ways.

Think boudin "cotechino" with his mom's charoset, hummus (yes, that hummus) with smoked guanciale and sweet pickled onions, sweet glazed lamb shanks with figs, whipped feta and mustard green tabbouleh—plus so much more. Dessert? Of course: kanafeh "cannoli" with Poirier's sugarcane syrup coming right up.

Don't be shy—tickets will go fast, so grab yours right here.