Jack’s Wife Freda serves the taste of home

Thousands of kilometres from Johannesburg, a slice of South African Jewish culture has found a home in the heart of New York. Jack’s Wife Freda, the restaurant founded by South African and Israeli-born couple Dean and Maya Jankelowitz, has become a celebrated dining destination by blending the tastes and traditions they grew up with. 

Opened in SoHo in 2012, Jack’s Wife Freda, was born from a simple idea: to build the neighbourhood restaurant the couple wanted to spend time in. “We had both grown up in homes where the table was the centre of everything, and we wanted to recreate that feeling in New York as immigrants from Israel and South Africa,” Maya Jankelowitz told the SA Jewish Report. 

“When we were thinking about a name, we kept coming back to Dean’s grandparents, Jack and Freda. They were the kind of people who made everyone around them feel like family. Their home was always full, always warm, always welcoming. We wanted to capture that feeling in the restaurant, and the name felt like the most honest way to honour them. It’s also a wonderful name to say out loud. There is something warm and slightly whimsical about it, which felt very us.” 

The menu also started off as a reflection of Dean and Maya’s background and families, from South Africa and Israel respectively. However, their palates also grew up in New York after they both immigrated some 20 years ago. 

“Israeli food is already a conversation between Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. South African food whispers of Mozambique, India, Portugal. By the time it lands on a plate in SoHo, it’s less a recipe and more a love letter written in several languages at once,” said Jankelowitz. 

She explained that the restaurant’s food, feeling, and philosophy all trace back to the tables they grew up around. 

“My grandmother’s pastilla. Dean’s mother’s pavlova. The schnitzel my mother had waiting for us after school. These dishes didn’t start as menu items. They started as memories. The restaurant is really just our way of sharing those memories with the world,” she said. 

Now, 14 years later, there are five branches of the restaurant and it is near impossible to get a table for brunch. However, following their values of generosity, they will always try to make room for more. 

“That instinct is so deeply wired into both of us that it just naturally became the foundation of everything we built. We also both grew up with a strong sense of community and belonging, and that’s something we have always tried to create at Jack’s Wife Freda,” said Jankelowitz. 

Even though the restaurants are such popular spots, they keep the warmth of a neighbourhood café by never forgetting where they started and creating human connection with their guests. 

“We still notice when someone is having a hard day. We still send over a malva pudding when it feels right. The size of the operation has grown, but the intention has never changed. Every guest who walks through our doors deserves to feel seen. That’s not something you can automate or scale. It has to be lived every single shift, by every single person on the team,” she said. 

Many South Africans have walked into the restaurant, and Jankelowitz describes the Proustian moment when they taste peri-peri chicken or malva pudding and are transported back home, despite being so far away. 

“We love being that for people,” she said. “We regularly meet guests who recount their memories of meeting Jack and Freda in Africa, playing bridge with Freda, or sometimes even a distant relative of Dean’s. It has become a beautiful meeting spot for South Africans to feel that sense of community in New York City.” 

The many typical South African and Israeli dishes on the menu evolved organically. 

“I don’t start with a cuisine; I start with a feeling. What do I want someone to feel when they eat this? More often than not, the answer leads me back to something from my childhood or Dean’s. The shakshuka on our brunch table. The malva pudding that has been on our menu since the very beginning. These things find their way onto the menu because they’re genuine, and guests can always taste the difference,” said Jankelowitz. 

For her, the chopped salad is particularly personal. She describes it as “Israel in a bowl”. “There isn’t a meal in my memory that didn’t have one somewhere on the table, breakfast to dinner.” 

For Dean, it’s peri-peri, the flavour of Johannesburg, the taste of growing up. “Neither of us could imagine cooking without it. It just quietly shows up, like family always does,” she said. 

While tradition is always going to be important for the couple, they don’t want to be constrained by it. 

“We like to think we’re always gently holding onto who we were while imagining who’re becoming. The restaurant lives in that space in between, where the two get to meet, shake hands, and create something new. Israeli food already sits at a crossroads of so many cultures. South African food does the same. Put them together in a kitchen in New York City, and something wonderful happens,” she said.