Our Story

Passionate’s 18-year culinary odyssey is a recipe for food, culture, and love.

For over 18 years, Passionate has been catering events across Melbourne and throughout Jewish communities around the world. By blending exotic spices and flavours from diverse cultures, we invite our patrons to travel far beyond the familiar, experiencing tastes they may never have encountered in traditional Jewish cuisine.

When it comes to dessert, Passionate is a chocolate lover’s dream. We use only the finest Belgian chocolate to create exceptional non-dairy and mostly gluten-free sweets, many of which are vegan and free from processed sugar. Each dish is crafted with care, creativity, and our signature culinary flair.

Rabbi Chef David Trakhtman began his cooking journey catering for the boys in Yeshiva. After receiving rabbinic ordination, he established his catering business in the South Caulfield Shule kitchen, helping families across Victoria celebrate their most meaningful simchas. From 2016 to 2019, David also ran a beloved restaurant called Passionate.

One day in 2017, a guest at the restaurant was so impressed with the food that she remarked, “Your wife is a lucky woman.” When David shared that he was single, she encouraged him to meet Shira Nussdorf—a dynamic educator and singer known for teaching everyone from toddlers to teens, and for producing large-scale kosher events around the world, including the Guinness World Records Largest Shabbat Dinner.

Intrigued, David invited Shira to be a guest speaker at a singles Shabbat dinner at Passionate. Exactly forty days later, they were engaged.

The Passionate couple closed the restaurant to focus on catering and on building Good Food Academy, their joint project offering kosher cooking classes, creative culinary experiences, and international food adventures. Their Culinary Odyssey has already taken them to Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Connecticut, Belize, Jerusalem, Ukraine and many more cities. Today, David operates out of the St Kilda Shule kitchen, enabling him to offer both meat and dairy options at the highest Kosher standards.

Together, David and Shira are dedicated to treating every guest like family—because one never knows how far a good meal worthy of a compliment could go. Passionate: where world food is served locally, and the spice of life is love.