“I’ve been thinking about this for five years,” says Alon Shaya, the nationally acclaimed New Orleans chef, when we meet at his newest venture, Safta’s Table, which opened this month in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood. “I’ve always wanted to do an all-day cafe, something more approachable and affordable, where you can pop in and pop out—serve breakfast but also big cookies and pre-packed items people could take home to the fridge.”
The counter-service model is a pivot for the Israeli-born Shaya, who spent a decade working in the city’s top kitchens before founding his own restaurant group in 2018 and with it, the James Beard Award–winning Saba in Uptown New Orleans and Safta in Denver’s RiNo district. With its 1950s-era lighting, curved counter, and cheerful pops of color, including a floral mural on the building exterior, Safta’s Table channels a retro diner, though the food is all modern Mediterranean. The scents find you first: toasted sesame, fresh cilantro, charred pita, succulent lamb.
But if there’s one dish at the heart of the place, it’s the chicken schnitzel sandwich. Before the cafe even opened, the portable nosh had earned cult status after being gifted curbside to Mardi Gras paradegoers. Cradled in a cute cardboard holder, it consists of house-made pita stuffed with tzatziki fennel slaw, pickles, tomato, and a breaded, thin-pounded chicken cutlet. A hawaij spice blend buoys the breading, while zhoug, a Yemeni green chili condiment, amps up the house mayo.
Shaya tells me about the sandwich’s origin as we each bite into one at an alfresco table in the spring sunshine. “My safta is the one who taught me to cook,” he says, using the Hebrew word for grandmother. “We immigrated to Philly when I was four, and I felt like a fish out of water. I didn’t speak English…it was a totally new place…and when my grandparents came to visit, the house smelled like home again. I grew up eating her schnitzel with tomato and cucumber salad three times per week, so the sandwich is built on that chicken and salad combination.”
Other menu highlights at Safta’s Table include the mezze sampler—bring friends to share the babaganoush, tzatziki, assorted pickles, harissa, olives, labneh, and ikra dip with salmon caviar—and the spinach feta boreka (an Israeli stuffed pastry) with grated tomato and spicy chili zhoug. There’s also a full bar menu, perhaps best paired with one of the front-counter cookies.
“We are right near a school, and I wanted kids out of class to grab a snack,” he says. I peruse the stacks. There’s tahini chocolate chip and snickerdoodle, each the diameter of a grapefruit.
I’m forty-five. School days are so far in the mirror, I probably couldn’t pass a seventh-grade science exam. But I do go home with a takeaway, creamy tiramisu.
Bookmark It
Opening a new restaurant would be work enough for most chefs, but Shaya and co-author June Hersh recently found time to write a 350-page, emotion-packed cookbook, set to publish in October 2026. Memories of a Good Meal: Recipes of Resilience Inspired by Stories of World War II Survival features recipes from wartime heroes and Holocaust survivors, from family favorites saved against all odds to dishes inspired by Navajo Code Talkers, whose work saved countless lives during the war.
Jenny Adams is a full-time freelance writer and photographer, most often penning pieces on great meals, stiff drinks, and the interesting characters she meets along the way. She lives in New Orleans, with a black cat, a spotted pup, and a Kiwi-born husband. Right now, she’s working on a (never-ending) horror novel, set in the French Quarter.
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