Matzah ball soup, short ribs braised in onion soup, potato kugel and braised mustard greens with a horseradish demi-glace, followed by Manischewitz chocolate chip macaroons with whipped cream and charoset — it’s the kind of meal that evokes memories of phenomenal Passover dinners from past generations.
The chances of having it in a restaurant, especially in the Kansas City area, are nearly non-existent.
That was until Chef Brian Aaron of Overland Park, Kansas, decided to highlight his Jewish heritage from a culinary standpoint.
“Judaism is about tradition, history and culture,” Aaron said. “With my culinary training, I’ve traveled all over the world (France, Italy, the Mediterranean and coastal South America) and tasted different cuisines. I’ve enjoyed so many of them, but with my Jewish background, this type of food is a specialty.”
Aaron, 48, has worked as the executive chef at Tannin Wine Bar & Kitchen in Kansas City, Missouri’s Crossroads neighborhood since it opened 15 years ago. He’s also the chef at The Mineral Lounge: Mediterranean Restaurant and Wine Bar in Kansas City, Missouri.
For the past five or six years, he’s created menus for Hanukkah and Passover, as well as “a pop-up Jewish deli menu” a couple times per year. This year’s Passover menu will be served from April 1-9 at Tannin.
“It started with me making matzah ball soup, and guests would ask for more,” Aaron said. “I’ve got the matzah balls close to softball size, but now, they’re more like larger baseballs.”
Chef Brian Aaron preparing matzah balls.
Although Aaron has drawn the Jewish community to these menus, the cuisine has also become quite popular with his largely non-Jewish customer base.
“We have a lot of regulars who are like, ‘What do you mean Passover doesn’t last for two weeks?’” Aaron said. “‘I want matzah ball soup now.’ It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else doing this. Each year, I’m creative with the recipes. My favorite thing to make is lox and eggs and onions.”
Aaron’s Hanukkah-themed menu is also popular and was featured on KSHB-TV in December 2024.
“The Hanukkah menu lasts for all eight days and nights, and we light a Menorah each night,” Aaron said.
Before his time at Tannin, Aaron would host an annual Passover Seder at midnight at a previous restaurant.
“Forty or 50 people would attend, and we’d have a different menu every year,” Aaron said. “We’d focus on a different Jewish diaspora. We did Morocco, Spain and Eastern Europe.”
Aaron, the son of Arnie and Sami Aaron of Kansas City, Missouri, grew up attending Hebrew school at the former Congregation Ohev Sholom. Arnie Aaron worked for a local kosher distributor in Kansas City. His wife, Sami, noticed Brian’s culinary talent at an early age.
“My mother’s favorite story is about me cooking at 5 or 6 years old,” Aaron said. “She came into the kitchen and asked, ‘What would you like for breakfast, kiddo?’ I said ‘eggs.’ She asked, ‘How would you like them?’ I said, ‘My way,’ and pushed a chair over to the stove. My mom had to hold on the back of my pants so I wouldn’t fall into the stove.”
Over the years, Aaron remembers attending large family gatherings, including Passover at his Aunt Gloria’s house. The strong tradition of the food and its cultural origins had an impact on him to this day.
The family wasn’t one to “write down recipes,” but Aaron has captured the essence of age-old traditions through his delicacies over the years.
Becoming a chef was Aaron’s destiny, even if “everyone else knew before I knew.”
Aaron became a bar mitzvah at Ohev Sholom in 1991, was active in BBYO, traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the Maccabi Games in track and field and participated in the March of The Living in Poland. Aaron has traveled to Israel three times and has relatives in the city of Netanya.
While attending Shawnee Mission South High School in the mid-1990s, Aaron worked at an Overland Park restaurant called Sahara Café, owned by a Palestinian family.
“We liked to think of ourselves as the peace process in action,” Aaron said of the restaurant, which closed about 20 years ago. “I had a chance to meet the owner’s family when I traveled to Israel. They took me around the Arabic Quarter in Jerusalem and met a lot of really sweet people who loved and supported everybody.”
After graduating from Shawnee Mission South High School in 1996, Aaron went to Colorado, where he earned a degree in restaurant management from Colorado State University in Fort Collins and later received culinary training at Johnson & Wales University’s Denver campus. He’s been back in the Kansas City area since 2003.
