A Chinese restaurateur cooks up ancient flavors for London’s kosher kehillah

Photos: Yonatan

He was one of the founders of London’s Chinatown, and 50 years later, his Chinese takeout restaurant is still part of the landscape. So what prompted this one-time hotel manager and caterer to bring a bit of China to the Jews while staying on top of the food chain?

Welcome to China in Hendon. Named after a fascinating ancient Jewish community in what was for a thousand years the capital of the Chinese empire, Kaifeng restaurant has been an institution of Jewish London for the past four decades. While there’s some serious fine dining here, Mr. Norman Han, Kaifeng’s octogenarian proprietor, is more than just a great chef and manager. He sees himself as a bridge between an ancient community and a modern kehillah, and his love for both good food and for the Jewish People continues to inspire him.

A family tree of Kaifeng’s most prominent Jewish family hangs on the wall in a gold frame, its names a mix of Hebrew and Chinese.

Ancient Kaifeng had a small but thriving Jewish community that, for the 800 years of its existence, never suffered from persecution or discrimination. The Chinese authorities, as well as the general population, welcomed their Jewish neighbors who’d arrived from Persia in the eighth century, and they allowed them to observe their religion with complete freedom. But those freedoms, plus their sheer distance from other communities, meant their eventual assimilation and integration into the general population.

Forty years ago, Mr. Han, who is actually UK-born, created a little throwback to those ancient times right in the midst of Jewish London.