This early experience not only introduced him to the magic of cooking, but also the joy of feeding others. “I become known for making ice cream – people would want to come round to our house for it. I really got a kick out of it.”
Osher's beetroot salad (Photo: Blake Ezra)[Missing Credit]
Immediately after graduating in environmental science, Jankel enrolled at culinary school, and within months landed a junior role in a two Michelin-starred kitchen.
“It was in at the deep end, and it was very stressful, but that’s where I learnt to cook,” he says. From there, he worked his way up, becoming head chef at Notting Hill Brasserie in the early 2000s – a Guardian review at the time opined that he had “turned a dull local eaterie into a restaurant of real character”. He was officially a “chef to watch”, and before long, was promoted to executive chef. which involved his overseeing five restaurants.
In 2010, Jankel struck out on his own, opening Street Kitchen, a high-end food truck in the City of London. “It was just the beginning of the street-food movement, and I’d seen these food trucks in LA and thought it was really cool,” he tells me, explaining how the project fused together his love of food and environmental concerns. “All the ingredients were from the UK and most came straight from farms, so it was a quite radical sourcing policy, especially for a food truck. In fact, I don’t think there was a more radically sourced restaurant in London at the time.”
Mark Jankel with Jun Tanaka – his Street Kitchen co-founder (Photo: Mark Jankel)[Missing Credit]
This emphasis on ingredients’ provenance remains key to Jankel’s cooking and is, he claims, one of the things that sets his catering companies apart from the competition. “We use suppliers that are local to the event as much as possible,” he tells me, explaining that another USP is not relying on set menus. It’s really important to us is that the menu really resonates with the client,” he says. “You want them to walk away from their event feeling really happy. So we find out what they love, their favourite foods, their favourite restaurants, the things they really don’t like, and we craft the menu around it all.
“The event is about them as a person and their vision for their event.”
Of all his projects, Osher – the word for joyfulness in Hebrew – is the newest, and arguably the most fulfilling. “I feel like it’s almost a bit of a mitzvah every time I do a kosher event. I love doing Jewish weddings, there’s something lovely about being part of someone’s simchah ... and my mum’s super proud about it,” he says.
Osher's yellowtail crudo (Photo: Blake Ezra)(C) Blake Ezra Photography 2024 Not to be reproduced without written permission.
“We can deliver something contemporary, something more in line with current restaurant trends, rather than something that you might expect from a kosher catering business,” he adds.
The idea for Osher came from his Jewish clients and their requests for kosher catering. But he finally bit the bullet thanks to Adam Zeitlin, who he brought on board and who had run his own kosher catering company, Zeitlin and Co, for more than a decade. “He’s got such a wealth of experience,” Jankel says, “and he knows a lot of the guests.” When it came to kosher accreditation, he chose to work with the Sephardi Kashrut Authoriy (SKA) for very personal reasons. “My wife is Israeli-Iraqi, so it felt like there was an affinity there,” he says.
Shuk in London's Borough Market, with it's former signage (Photo: Blake Ezra)[Missing Credit]
Before we part ways, I’m keen to hear more about Shuk – which is where I’ve tried his food. Jankel tells me the idea of setting up a “really good pita place” came to him on a trip to Israel, and that the “DNA of Shuk” is recipes he learnt from his wife’s dad Avi, an Israeli with Iraqi heritage. I was keen to know how business has fared over the past few years, especially since the stand has “Tel Aviv market food” emblazoned across its front.
“We took that off, actually,” he says, to my surprise, explaining that in the wake of October 7, Shuk received a barrage of of one-star reviews that “drastically brought down” its Google rating. “We’re super-proud to be Jewish and Israeli, but we just felt that from a business perspective, it might be sensible to not be shouting about it at this time,” he says, with some resignation.
“I’m a proud Jew and I wear a Magen David, and I will always will. But sometimes you need to think about the business.”
www.osherlondon.co.uk; Instagram: @osherlondon
Mark Jankel in action in the kitchen (Photo: Blake Ezra)[Missing Credit]