Chef David Nayfeld wanted his new San Francisco restaurant, Che Fico, to have a strong Jewish identity because of the current political climate. But why was making a statement so important to him, exactly? “We’ve been made into scapegoats so many times, and hearing ‘Jews will not replace us’ and weird [stuff] like that recently,” he said. But there was another reason, too: He’s proud of who he is, and always has been.

“A lot of my peers with refugee parents tried to assimilate, but I was always loud and proud about who I am,” said Nayfield, who grew up in Alameda the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus, and the first in his family to be born in America. “So I wanted to find my identity within this cuisine.” When he says “this cuisine,” he is not talking about ancestral foods, but rather his cuisine of choice — Italian, with a menu that includes several Roman Jewish dishes described as the chef’s “favorite peasant comfort foods.”