Lev Kitchen Opens in Ithaca

Ithaca, NY— If you’re walking down the Commons, you may come across a new light blue storefront. Located in the space where the former ramen restaurant Bol used to be, a new restaurant called Lev Kitchen opened today. This restaurant aims to bring a fresh cuisine to the area, combining elements specifically from foods from countries in the Middle East such as Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

However, Lev Kitchen isn’t just another new small restaurant in Ithaca’s downtown hub. Cornell alumni and owners Ben Plotke and his wife Yen have designed Lev Kitchen to exist under a business model that explores what it means to be a “sustainable” food operation, as well as an operation that is welcoming to all, including refugees and recent immigrants in the greater Ithaca area who may be looking for work.

“We want to be kind of a better employer, kind of running on a sustainable model,” Yen said. “So, we know that we’re a small player in this big restaurant industry and whatever changes and things that we do might be very minute, but what we want to do is be a voice and to show people that ‘hey, you can do this right.’”

Plotke was inspired to create such a restaurant from two specific experiences. First, his years spent working with refugees at a nonprofit called Sanctuary Kitchen in New Haven, Connecticut, where he grew up. The nonprofit works to help recently resettled refugees and immigrants obtain jobs and enter the culinary industry.

Second, Plotke was inspired by a culinary-focused Birthright trip to Israel. In Israel, Plotke tried a range of Israeli and Middle Eastern foods and tried Malawach for the first time at Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

“Take those two things combined, that’s basically Lev Kitchen,” Plotke said. “It’s Malawach and we’re continuing to try to work with refugees and recently resettled individuals.”

Malawach can be best described as a crispy, flaky flatbread. Like many who try Malawach and go to the lively Mahane Yehuda market in Israel for the first time, Plotke wished something like it existed in the United States and here in Ithaca. 

“What’s interesting is Malawach is super popular in Israel, but it does not exist in the United States,” Plotke said. “It’s sold in grocery stores, in frozen markets in Israel, but it’s not really available in the United States.”

Now, Plotke will be making Malawach from scratch as it is set to be the centerpiece of the flavor at Lev Kitchen.

“There’s a little bit of added pressure because we’re bringing something to market that a lot of people are familiar with and they have very positive experiences with back in Israel when they had it, so now we have to make sure we don’t let them down when they have it here in Ithaca, New York,” Plotke said.