Along with Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver, Yotam Ottolenghi is among the London culinary luminaries with a global influence, and the so-called “Ottolenghi effect” has had an undoubted influence on Australian cooks. It refers to his use of Mediterranean ingredients such as pomegranate seeds, sumac and tahini, and his unique approach to vegetables, making them the centre of the plate rather than just an accompaniment. Australia is one of the biggest markets for Ottolenghi’s books, with more than a million sold in this country by 2026. According to his publisher, Edbury, the 2024 Ottolenghi cookbook, Comfort, quickly became No. 1 in the Australian non-fiction charts.

Born in Israel, Yotam Ottolenghi moved to London in 1997 to study French pastry cooking at Le Cordon Bleu. In 2002, after working in several restaurants,  he opened his first deli in the London suburb of Notting Hill with the Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi. It was named simply Ottolenghi. The website Fantastic Man recalled:

West London flocked to the call of preserved lemons and pomegranate seeds, chargrilled broccoli with chilli and garlic, harissa-marinated chicken with grapefruit salad, lentil and chard soup, hazelnut cupcakes and pistachio shortbread – all dishes deriving from his own Middle-Eastern roots, enhanced by his unique alchemical layering of flavours. 

He went on to open more delis and restaurants in London and beyond. Australia was introduced to the Ottolenghi effect when the first cookbook titled (surprise, surprise!) Ottolenghi – The Cookbook was launched in 2008. It had modest sales of 25,000 in Australia, but by the time he made his first official visit, in 2014, momentum had gathered. By then, the first book had been followed by  Plenty,  dedicated to vegetarian recipes, and Jerusalem, published in 2012, which explored the intersecting Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian culinary traditions of that city. In 2014, SBS aired Mediterranean Feasts, featuring Ottolenghi’s culinary travels through Turkey, Tunisia, Israel and Morocco and his visit, for Good Food Month, served to highlight the launch of his fourth book, Plenty More. A signature event during the tour was the Yotam Ottolenghi brunch, where he joined with Shane Delia and Karen Martini to produce an exotic, Mediterranean-inspired spread:

Shane Delia

Hand made Turkish bread
Fresh ricotta, organic tahini, carob molasses
Olives rolled in fel fel
Pumpkin & cinnamon hummus, chicken, smoked Aleppo pepper, cashew
Braised beans and saffron, Lebanese sausage, sumac hobez

Karen Martini

Spiced saffron scones with a date lemon preserve & an orange blossom labneh
Sumac potatoes with cornichons, fresh herbs, crème fraiche, fried quail eggs & pickled veal tongue
Lamb & almond mini pastry

Yotam Ottolenghi

Tomato & roasted lemon salad
Crushed puy lentils, tahini & cumin
Cauliflower cakes with salbitxada sauce
Banana bread with tahini and honeycomb

Since then, Ottolenghi has visited Australia frequently for speaking and book tours, as well as appearing as a guest judge of the television series MasterChef in 2017. He has strong connections to this country. He professes to be a huge fan of pavlova and has even included a recipe for chocolate ripple cake in Comfort. This is thanks to one of his collaborators and co-authors, Helen Goh, who was raised in Melbourne, joining the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen in 2006. Ramael Scully, the former head chef of Ottolenghi’s London restaurant Nopi, and co-author of the book of the same name, grew up in Australia and heavily influenced early menus with native Australian flavours.

Among subsequent books has been the very successful Simple. This book breaks recipes into categories: short on time; 10 ingredients or less; make ahead; lazy; and easier than you think. That being said, most of them require some pantry ingredients that the average Aussie cook is unlikely to have on hand and some that could be hard to find in the supermarket. So making a simple recipe might require a rather complex shopping trip (or an online order) for things like black garlic, barberries, rose harissa and urfa chilli flakes.

In addition to his cookbooks, Ottolenghi now has a range of gourmet products and household accessories, which are available in Australia. I don’t think I’ll be paying $99.95 for an Ottolenghi tea towel by Amuse La Bouche, but I might be tempted by the Pomegranate Rose and Lemon Harissa, just $13 at Woolworths.