Friday Night, Jewish Shabbat specialties every day of the week

Every week, Jewish families celebrate Shabbat. Every Friday evening, parents, siblings, aunts and cousins gather around lovingly prepared feasts. In fact, there are as many Jewish cuisines as there are Jewish families, whether Sephardic or Ashkenazi, Moroccan or Polish.

If you're a goy or don't have a practicing family, there's no mystery to this generous tradition: you'll have to go to a restaurant to savor these dishes that have been passed down from generation to generation. Few Israeli restaurants in Paris used to showcase authentic Shabbat recipes, but that was before Vendredi Soir opened its doors.

Opposite the Gare de l'Est train station, Vendredi Soir offers Jewish cuisine that's "homemade and made just like home", with generosity and authenticity. At the helm are Keren Afriat and Jérémie Bankhaiter, already behind the Levantine restaurant and MaMi Deli bakery. With its mosaic floor, solid wood bar, Art Deco touches here and there, including a large mirror adorned with foliage, spiral staircase and natural brick wall, Vendredi Soir is a truly welcoming place.

On the menu, Moroccan, Tunisian and Ashkenazi Jewish dishes emblematic of the Shabbat, as well as various dishes that symbolize weekend family gatherings, such as kemias, small plates to share: artichokes with preserved lemon (5€), chopped chicken liver (9€), carrots with orange, dumplings with tomato and cumin sauce, fennels with lemon, egg and tuna brick pastry, hummus or these gigantic pastillas with chicken, dried fruit and spices (12€), a genuine sweet and sour Moroccan recipe.

Our homemade hallot breads (€7 for two), sourced directly from MaMi Deli, are already a must on the menu. Delivered each morning to the restaurant, they are perfectly brioche-crusted and happily dipped in tahini, olive oil and harissa.

Couscous, of course, also features prominently on the Vendredi Soir menu, in vegetarian or meat versions - chicken, merguez, beef - as well as Moroccan versions with dried fruit or Tunisian versions with the famous dumplings (23€). All are served with semolina generously soaked in a vegetarian broth of carrots, onions, squash, zucchini, turnip and cabbage.

In the purest Judeo-Moroccan tradition, the dafina (€28) will delight weekend visitors, as it is only served from Friday evening. Simmered for 24 hours, it consists of rice, wheat, chickpeas, beef, potatoes and eggs. Tunisians, meanwhile, will be delighted to find pkaila on the menu, a stew of fried spinach simmered for a very long time, with fresh herbs, white beans and beef.

Unless you'd prefer a schnitzel, a thin Ashkenazi cutlet of breaded chicken (€16) served with Tunisian"pasta with sauce"? We told you the menu would be different from the usual Jewish restaurants in Paris!

• To be read
• Israeli restaurants in Paris, our top addresses for Jewish cuisine
• Nour, a small counter serving Israeli street food and grilled arayes
• Brooch, Israeli stall, shawarma and falafel in the Passage des Panoramas

What's certain is that you can wash it all down with a glass of wine(kosher, like the entire menu), a homemade latte (8€) with almond milk, date honey and orange blossom (to die for), and of course Moroccan-style tea (7€ for two) with fresh mint and pine nuts!