Who is Ben Siman Tov? With half a million followers, an accent whose origin is not entirely clear, an impressive beard, and, most importantly, a series of unusual baking recipes, he is taking the net by storm.
Behind unique videos containing smoked meat, different-flavored breads, and even a pink Sfenj, Ben Siman Tov started his career at Eyal Shani's North Abraxas restaurant. He learned the basics there and continued as a chef in a few more restaurants before studying at the Culinary University of Northern Italy.
On one of his days off from school, he received advice from his father to start baking. "'Try making bread,' he told me, and I did try. That was the point where I began the baking journey in my life. I learned from YouTube, but mostly I tried a lot and realized something fundamental: anyone can bake."
"It requires practice, understanding the process, and constant improvement, but the bottom line is that I don't have anything special in my hands that others don't. It depends on each person how much they are willing to get into the process and to remember that every loaf of bread, pastry or pizza you make will always be better than the last one you made. "You'll just keep getting better and better at learning the language of baking," added Siman Tov.
Siman Tov currently lives in New York with his wife and young daughter. With half a million followers, he divides his time between filming videos, managing his catering company, and working on future projects. He and his chef wife published a cookbook in September and will open a bakery in Manhattan in the coming months. Siman Tov revealed that the new bakery will sell only one product.
There are a lot of food content creators on social media. How do you stand out from the rest?
"It's very important to stay true to the values you promote, to create your own language and uniqueness, and above all, to understand that it's a long journey that involves perseverance and hard work. There are a lot of moments when you don't see progress, and sometimes there are videos that don't succeed and there's a drop in exposure. On the other hand, there are unexpected successes where you are offered opportunities that you didn't think about. I've been doing this for five years without a break and I think I've already developed expertise in this field."
Do you feel the need to upload a lot of videos every week? A kind of commitment to your followers?
"I've gotten out of the cycle where content affects my life. I don't let it stress me out, I don't let videos that fail depress me, and on the other hand, I don't let videos that are very successful lift me up too much. It's like a business. There are days when there are a lot of customers and everything is sold out, and there are days when people don't come. Social media is my advertising and marketing platform, so even if one post I wrote wasn't successful, it could have generated much more than just views. For example, sometimes I upload videos or pictures of my catering. They won't necessarily be successful videos like my recipes, but if it brought me leads from customers who really want to hire me for an event with me and do catering, then I did my job. "It's irrelevant whether there were five views or 500,000, everything has its purpose."
"If you don't like the fact that I'm Israeli, then get out of here and don't come back"
Siman Tov doesn't flaunt the fact he is Israeli in every video, but it's there in the background and he obviously doesn't hide it. After October 7, like many Israeli creators on social media who have commented on the war and the hostages, he received hostile responses from pro-Palestinians, but he was actually happy to get rid of them: "When I started talking about the massacre and the hostages, there was a drastic drop of about 60-70 thousand people in the number of followers. As a business, it's terrible to see those 70 thousand people leave, it's like you're losing shares in some company, but at the same time, these are people who were never my clients. If you don't like the fact that I'm Israeli, then get out of here and don't come back. I felt like it was a good clean-up for my feed. I know exactly who I am and where I came from and if it doesn't suit you, goodbye."
After October 7, Siman Tov took part in several fundraising events for the survivors and also participated in events for the hostages.
How connected are you to the Jewish and Israeli community in New York?
"Very connected and I have many friends in the various communities. I also got to do events and collaborations in the Jewish community and among the Ultra-Orthodox. These communities have a very important place in my heart and I also give them a lot of attention. I maintain close contact with the community, but work with everyone in the city."
What advice do you have for all the people at home who want to enter the world of baking?
"So first of all, I can tell the story of my partner, a Swedish guy I lived with in Italy when I was studying culinary arts. He was one of the worst cooks I've ever met, one of those who ruins cornflakes with milk, who really doesn't know how to cook anything. Every time we were invited to dinner, he would say, 'I'll bring bread.' So I told him, but you don't know how to bake, so he would answer: Of course, I know how to bake! He would just make some kind of dough, make some kind of dough, put it on some kind of pan, and put it in the oven at some kind of temperature. Some kind of bread would come out."
"Honestly, no matter who makes my recipes, they will probably turn out better than what they buy here at the supermarket"
"It was a great bread because basically any bread that comes out of the oven hot at home is usually much better than what you buy outside, especially in the U.S. Honestly, no matter who makes my recipes, they will probably turn out better than what they buy here at the supermarket. There is one thing that is very important to emphasize in home baking, you buy the best products for you, and you don't put anything from commercial baking into your body."
So how do you start baking at home?
"I recommend that you start by choosing a pastry that is important to you and that you want to repeat. For example, challah is always the easiest because every Shabbat we make kiddush. Choose a recipe from someone you trust, make it for the first time and follow the recipe exactly stage by stage while learning from your mistakes. If it comes out a little dry, then you need to add a little more liquid, read and learn or ask people who understand."
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"Once you specialize in one recipe that you also repeat, after four challahs you will already understand perfectly what you are doing, and once you start to understand one recipe a little more or make a few recipes, suddenly you will have your own recipe for pancakes, your own recipe for challah, your own recipe for some kind of focaccia - and you will know how to do all of this well. Slowly it will start to come more naturally. There is nothing to be afraid of, you are just making bread, not cracking the atom."
You end each of your videos with the shout: YASSS! Where did that come from?
"It's part of creating your own brand. There's also something nice about it that's associated with me and also prevents others from stealing the content because the video ends with YASSS and if you cut it, the video you stole won't be finished. The idea is basically to close it with YASSS, which is something that will click for people. There were a lot of things along the way, there was YASSS, boom, pack and all sorts of other nonsense, YASSS was chosen for the first time and it's stuck ever since."