Avihai Hadida brings Israeli chef Meir Adoni and Samna to Prague

The owner of Prague's SaSaZu restaurant, Avihai Hadida, has invested in a new project together with the well-known Israeli chef Meir Adoni. The restaurant Samna, whose cuisine has already succeeded in New York, is opening on Ovocný trh in Prague. Hadida brings money and local business experience, while the concept draws on Mediterranean family recipes, dishes made for sharing and the wish to stretch dinner out until the early hours.

The name comes from samna, a clarified butter: Adoni uses it to make Yemeni bread, essentially a brioche, silky inside and crisp outside. The table also features eggplant carpaccio with tahini, date syrup, feta, pistachios and rose petals, Moroccan “cigars” of thin fried dough with beef short ribs, and a potato gratin with tuna tartare and black truffle.

Who is behind the project

In his native Israel, Meir Adoni is a star: he is known for his restaurants and for the TV competition Game of Chefs, where he was a judge. He built his reputation at Catit, a restaurant founded in 2002, where he combined Moroccan family recipes with modern techniques. At the end of 2016 he closed it and moved to New York, and in April 2017 he opened the restaurant Nur there with entrepreneur Gad Peleg. Just four months later, critic Pete Wells awarded it two stars in The New York Times.

Hadida knows the local dining scene well. He ran SaSaZu even before he became a co-owner: in September 2014, together with two partners, he bought the venue from the Israeli group Queenco.

What Samna will be like

“Samna is a place people come to for the atmosphere,” says Hadida. According to him, there will be music, guests will not have to hunt for the bar, and on weekends food will be served even at two in the morning. The experience, he believes, should work from the moment of booking to the moment the bill arrives.

The team spent about three years looking for an address and considered many Prague locations before choosing Ovocný trh, where Kogo and Symbols used to operate. According to Hadida, there are 80 seats inside and 22 employees.

Adoni creates the menu and trains the team. At the start he is helped by colleagues from his earlier projects with experience from Warsaw, Israel, Mexico and Berlin; a staff member from Ukraine came to help with pastry and desserts, since Adoni also has a restaurant in Kyiv. About three quarters of the menu will be small dishes for sharing, joined by a lamb shoulder or a whole fish. The kitchen combines a North African and Mediterranean base with Asian ingredients and European techniques, but it will not be kosher: the chef does not plan to use pork, and seafood is on the menu.

Address: Ovocný trh 6, Prague 1. Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

By the Around Prague newsroom