Remove the Ceremony, Keep the Finesse: Meir Adoni and YOD Group on SAMNA

If every plate disappeared from SAMNA for a day, would you still know where you were?

Portrait of Chef Meir.

For YOD Group, the design studio behind the restaurant, the answer is yes. Not because of a particular chair, table or decorative object, but because of the way the room feels. Natural materials, texture, light and acoustics were brought together to create something tactile, something experienced as much through the body as through the eyes. The intention was never to make SAMNA feel like an imported concept dropped into Marbella.

That uniqueness matters a lot because SAMNA’s identity is difficult to reduce to a single visual detail or signature dish. It is positioned somewhere between the food and the room, between memory and discovery. The same is true in the kitchen, as Chef Meir Adoni has been cooking professionally for more than thirty years. Over that time, dishes such as his kubaneh, eggplant carpaccio, kataifi, handmade cigars, couscous and burnt eggplant cream have become part of his culinary essence. Some of them have travelled well beyond his own restaurants, becoming part of the wider language of modern Israeli and Mediterranean cooking.

Kubbana Bread.

At SAMNA, however, Adoni is not merely looking backwards at that history. As he  describes the restaurant as a point in his career where experience has given him greater freedom. He no longer feels the need to prove how complicated food can be. What interests him more is how significantly it can affect someone. The traditions are still there. Kubaneh, eggplant, tahini, harissa and kataifi are connected to memory and childhood, but Adoni does not believe tradition should be treated like something kept behind glass. His approach is to respect it enough to test it.

And that is especially evident in the way he talks about the relationship between the Near East and Far East. He does not begin with a blend. In fact, he dislikes the word. He begins with taste. Acidity, fermentation, smoke, spice, sweetness, bitterness and umami do not belong to one country. Preserved lemons and yuzu may come from very different culinary traditions, but both understand acidity. Harissa and gochujang approach heat and fermentation from different directions. Tahini, sesame, pickles, herbs, charcoal and raw ingredients create other connections.

One of the dishes at SAMNA Marbella.

The point is not to put an Asian ingredient into a Middle Eastern dish simply because it makes the plate look more contemporary. The ingredient or technique has to make the food better. For Adoni, that is what makes the exchange between the Near East and Far East feel natural. Both understand intensity, preservation, fermentation, fire, powerful condiments and balance. The idea comes down to something quite practical, which is that the food has to be delicious first.

SAMNA’s sharing-plate format follows the same thinking. Adoni does not want guests sitting politely in front of individual plates, trying to decode each course. He wants the table to become active. Food moves around, people share. Someone tears the kubaneh with their hands. Someone takes the last bite from a plate. There is technique behind the food, but he does not want the ceremony that can sometimes come with it. His phrase is telling: remove the ceremony without removing the finesse.

That friction runs through SAMNA. Ancient cooking traditions sit alongside contemporary techniques. Slow-cooked meats can spend twelve to fourteen hours over gentle heat. Bread is made by hand. Couscous is rolled by hand. Preservation techniques and recipes passed through generations sit alongside modern gastronomy and technology.

Technology, for Adoni, is not the destination. It is another tool for creating emotion. And emotion is ultimately what he wants guests to take away.

The kitchen at SAMNA Marbella.

Not an inventory of ingredients or a technical breakdown of how clever a dish was. Not necessarily even a perfect photograph of the evening. He wants people to laugh, eat with their hands, discover something unexpected, order another bottle of wine and stay longer than they planned. Six months later, they may not remember exactly what was in a particular dish. But he hopes they remember the smell of the bread, the music, the people around their table and how the evening felt. That brings the kitchen back to the room environment.

YOD Group’s approach to the interior is similarly less concerned with giving SAMNA one object that can stand in for its identity. The materials, light, acoustics and atmosphere are there to shape an experience that photographs can only partially capture. Both approaches are ultimately concerned with the same thing which is memory. As the restaurant is not trying to make every element compete for attention. The food carries history without being trapped by it and the room likewise creates an atmosphere without relying on decoration to explain itself. Making the two meet in the space between familiarity and surprise.

Perhaps that is why Adoni does not describe SAMNA simply as another restaurant at this stage of his career. It is where everything he has learned can meet everything he is still curious about. The walls matter, but they are not the identity. The plates matter, but they are not the whole story. As what remains, when both disappear, is the feeling.