Hip-Hop's Beloved Chef Takes No Days Off

hip-hop’s beloved chef takes no days off

Once on track to become a doctor, Eyal Banayan now dishes out three square meals a day for rappers like French Montana and Jeremih.

ENCINO HILLS, CALIFORNIA – Eyal Banayan kept having the same dream in 2017. He’s a guest on popular late-night show, CONAN, though he doesn’t know how or why he’s there.

Then one evening, a friend texted him: “Did you watch CONAN tonight?” alluding to a bit mocking the long lines at Comic-Con® in San Diego. “Here are some upcoming panels that still have short lines if you want to check them out!” exclaimed Conan, his crowd already humming with laughter. “On Sunday, there’s ‘The Guy Who Made The Shawarma For The Avengers Tells All!’” It was a direct shout-out to Eyal and his big break on screen in the kitchen behind Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, and Captain America digging into his food after a long day saving the world.

In 2012, Eyal dropped out of UCLA where he studied chemistry to take over his family’s restaurant after his father had a heart attack. Gregarious by nature, he befriended two frequent customers, Stan Lee, then-creative lead and publisher of Marvel Comics, and his scouting manager. “I didn’t know who they were, but they were great patrons, always talkative,” he recalls.

When they asked to film the last scene of The Avengers inside his diner, Eyal complied, not knowing the next day would he be sitting in hair and make-up next to Scarlett Johanson. “You’re going to be famous. I’m not kidding!” Marvel’s scouting manager told him. He was right – business boomed as buses of tourists bee-lined towards Eyal daily, food selling out in less than three hours.

Elat Burger, named after Eilat City in Israel, now known as Shalom Grill under different management, is a local favorite for Middle Eastern-inspired burgers, sandwiches, and shawarmas. It sits on West Pico Boulevard between Beverly Hills and Culver City, not far from where Eyal grew up with his family after immigrating to Los Angeles from Israel during the Kuwait War when he was six years old.

Taking a used plate downstairs to the kitchen in Mally Mall’s house in Encino Hills, CA, where Chef Eyal lives when he is in Los Angeles.

Once on track to become a doctor, Eyal is now a private chef for some of the biggest recording artists and producers in the hip-hop industry. He has served soju flank beef rib with garlic cream sauce to French Montana (his favorite); honey seared sweet chili salmon over coconut jasmine rice to Mally Mall; duck omelets to Swae Lee; and satisfied the appetites of Jeremih, Jason Derulo, Doobie, Rafi Malice, and Poo Bear, one of Justin Beiber’s main collaborators.

After leaving Elat Burger, Eyal started a catering company called Méli-Mélo, a French phrase meaning a hodge-podge or arrangement of things, consistent with his core cuisine, “fushion-ed everything,” which carries to this day. His specialty is a cinnamon and burnt brown sugar seared ahi tuna sashimi.

Four months into Méli-Mélo, a client asked how much it would cost for Eyal to personally cook dinner for him and his wife in their home. Eyal took the gig and realized, “Hey, this is better than catering. Yes, it’s more work, but at the end of the day I was never only standing over someone’s shoulder.”

He soon found himself living in the Hamptons cooking for Martin Shkreli and the main investor of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company known for inflating the cost of antiparasitic drug, Daraprim, by 50x in 2015. When scandal broke out and FBI investigations found Mr. Shkreli accountable for two counts of securities fraud, sentencing him to federal prison and branding him “Pharma Bro” and “the most hated man in America,” Eyal, too, took a hit within the community. “I was technically on their payroll,” he said.

In times of controversial allegations against his clients—not an uncommon happenstance in his line of work—Eyal remains neutral. “I separate myself from whatever drama may be going on,” he told me. “I’ll keep a distance when the client is hot.”

Being a private chef is like running a small all-you-can-eat restaurant inside somebody’s kitchen. “I’m standing by your side twenty-four seven ready to make you food,” he said. “Some people want fancy shrimp, some want PB&J, and some will install a fifteen-thousand-dollar pizza oven in the backyard because all they want to eat is pizza,” he chuckled. “No two people have the same palette. I have snobs, slobs, and everyone in between.”

No one wants to have a five-star meal every time they eat. “Clients will say, ‘I want that particular mac ‘n’ cheese you make,’’’ among other staples like black pepper butter filet mignon, flame-grilled spicy honey barbecue wings, and pumpkin banana tempura with cream cheese icing and frosting.

“The batter consists of pumpkin purée, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar. I fry the banana, dust it with cinnamon dry flour, fry it again, put it over the cream cheese frosting and top it off with cream cheese icing and powdered sugar,” he divulged. “Catering to cravings helps, too.”

After his time with Martin Shkreli, music producer Rick Steel asked Eyal to cater the set of a French Montana music video. Eyal made his soju ribs and port wine derby seared scallops. (Port wine derby is a cheese ripened for three months in pure Port or Merlot wine. “It tastes like both wine and cheese,” according to him.) He knew French was Muslim and didn’t eat pork.

The next day, he catered French’s birthday party in Hidden Hills next to Calabasas. “Before I knew it, I was cooking for him for two weeks,” he said.

He got the offer to be French’s full-time chef while standing in Drake’s backyard, part of his self-dubbed “Yolo Estate” featuring a movie theater, wine cellar, and custom grotto. In Motto by Drake featuring Lil Wayne, he raps, “Me, Franny, and Mally Mall at the crib-o.”

Sitting in ninety degree heat, the Chef is loyal to his black coat and pants

“No two people have the same palette. I have snobs, slobs, and everyone in between.”

The Chef sources his ingredients locally when possible, upholding the belief that we should eat what is around us. He buys the daily catch from fishermen in Marina del Rey; walks through slaughterhouses in Sylmar, eyes darting to the fattiest cut; and visits farms in La Cañada Flintridge for duck eggs to make duck omelets and bacon.

Vegetables are organic, picked up from nearby farmers, and spices should also not require a passport. “It’s cool to have Himalayan pink salt in your cupboard, but the energy in that salt is from far away,” he said. “I prefer salt from Utah, or volcanic ash salt from Hawaii.”

The one exception is cheese, which are imported non-pasteurized from France, England, Spain, Mexico, and Greece. “Halloumi cheese is more important than you can imagine,” he moaned. “I get asked for it all the time. It psychologically brings people back to a vacation they had in Greece.”

The studio where Unforgettable by French Montana featuring Swae Lee and Bad and Boujee by Migos featuring Lil Uzi Vert were recorded.

As a live-in chef,  his daily schedule is a reverse 9-5, said Eyal, 34, who wakes up around 3pm, whips up breakfast around 5pm, and lunch around 10pm. “My clients start their day late at night, whether that’s with a club appearance, concert, album release party, or simply honing their craft.” Parties and after-parties are routine, but the Chef says he prefers those with enough discipline to return home and get back to work. Dinner is usually well into the morning hours.

Five years in the shadows of the rich and famous and Chef Eyal has remained a grounded antithesis to the flashy, out-of-touch celebrity persona. “I haven’t fallen into the shit,” he told me, “not even close.” He has abstained from alcohol for the better part of three years, eats a balanced diet, and limited meat to ten percent of his weekly intake. “Everyone should drink as much fresh pressed juice as possible, ideally celery and ginger, and eat from the Fungi Kingdom,” he said definitively. “I love mushrooms. I love mold.” He favors marijuana because it is the safer option. “You don’t see cops at dispensaries, you see them at bars and clubs,” he added.

He lives in mansions with capuchin monkey housemates and driving luxury cars, but isn’t concerned with designer items. He does feels lucky to represent branded apparel like Rae Sremmurd’s SremmLife and French Montana’s Coke Boys. Most prized, though, are his chef coats gifted to him by every person he has cooked for. He held up a black uniform with a large Egyptian owl on the left breast, showing off its backside with an unmissable print of Mally Mall adorned with his signature and those of Jeremih, Doobie, Rafi Malice, DJ Hylyte, Lil Mosey, and Akon.

Eyal holds up his personalized chef coats from a few favorite clients.

A celebrity roster of clients is far-fetched from Eyal’s first days cooking at Elat Burger. He remembers one patron who complained it was the worst burger he’d ever eaten. “I said to myself, ‘Hold on. I can ace this shit,’” said the Chef. “I practiced from six in the morning until eleven at night. I invited friends over to the restaurant and cooked for them at two in the morning. I decided that if I could eat my own food every day, then the public would love it.”

Since those humble beginnings, Eyal has remained one hundred percent self-taught. He has never stepped foot inside a culinary school but credits his college chemistry labs with teaching him the fundamentals. “They’re the exact same thing to me,” he said. “Gas, liquid, matter, temperature – that’s all there is to it. I don’t see a raw fish, I see ways I can change its structure. Some people will blast butane on it, but I would rather stand outside with a magnifying glass and solar-sear it. When it comes to heat, the sun is a more organic source than methane.” For the non-scientifically inclined, he relates cooking to the color wheel. “You can blend foods the same way you can blend colors to make new ones,” he told me. “Once you figure out the wheel, you can keep innovating.”

Eyal sees the only shortcoming of his work as the constant and unpredictable travel. He splits his time between five cities: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, Minneapolis, and Miami, often jetting from one to another at an hour’s notice. It’s hard for him to maintain a stable romantic relationship.

“LA will always be home though,” he said, revealing his phone’s lock screen, a photo of his bedroom balcony backlit by sunshine and tall green trees in Mally Mall’s house in Encino Hills; Unforgettable by French Montana featuring Swae Lee and Bad and Boujee by Migos featuring Lil Uzi Vert were recorded in the downstairs studio.

Los Angeles will be home to his next venture, a 6,000 sq. ft space on Melrose and Fairfax Avenue – several miles from where Elat Burger used to be – dedicated to the highly sought after and consumed truffle.

“Two-thirds of the space will be used to grow truffles and the rest used to sell truffles and serve truffle dishes,” he said; a kind of farm-grocery-café hybrid.

It won’t be his first time opening and operating a restaurant. He recently sold Juno in Bushwick, N.Y., an indirect competitor to Urth Café and Tocaya Organica on the west coast. The grand opening of his current venture, CHX, a Minneapolis-based fried chicken tenders competitor to Raising Cane’s, has been delayed by Covid-19.

Spending day in and out of the kitchen would be exhausting for most. When asked if he ever gets sick of cooking, Eyal replied in an instant. “Absolutely not. I live it. I breathe it. There’s not one part I don’t enjoy,” he said. “Not even cleaning up afterwards.”