Image credit Flickr user dlisbona

Article originally appeared in Seattle Post

It’s Sunday, the first day of the Israeli work week, the equivalent of our Monday. But there’s not an empty seat this evening at the boisterous and beautiful Herbert Samuel restaurant, a Tel Aviv newcomer that looks out on the Mediterranean. I may be the oldest person in the place. The hem of my skirt is certainly the longest. The kitchen sends out plate after plate of food so alive it practically hums, a blur of okra with eggplant and tahini; giant shrimp with spicy ravioli; pickled this and Za’atared that. As the meal winds down, a majestic whole grouper arrives doused in aromatic crushed rosemary and fennel. Can a dead fish be charismatic? This one is.

People visit Israel for “the sun-drenched climate,” “the rich variety of sites and sights” and “the fascinating contrast between the ancient and the modern.” Israel has, the Ministry of Tourism pamphlet I’ve picked up continues, “a special place in your heart.”

I was interested in a different organ: my stomach. I was in Israel for the food.

In a weeklong trip earlier this fall in which I ate steadily from morning to night, I came nowhere near exhausting its surprising and stylish food scene. To my astonishment, Israel has a food scene, including not merely falafel and hummus but also marquee chefs; boutique wineries; trendy ingredients (last year okra, this year beets); artisanal breads, olive oils and goat cheeses; and restaurants that boast stunning open kitchens, molecular cuisine and gnocchi on every menu.

Image credit Flickr user dlisbona

In the last 20 years, Israel has undergone a food revolution as profound as our own.

“The food revolution in Israel started when we stopped trying to be French and started trying to be Mediterranean,” says Janna Gur, my guide to Israeli food and the editor of the glossy food magazine Al Hashulchan. “We stopped trying to be beef and veal and realized we were the land of lamb and goat.”

I am visiting at Gur’s urging. At a brunch in New York last winter, she was aghast at American ignorance about Israeli cuisine. My own impressions, gleaned 25 years earlier during two months at a kibbutz, were largely limited to Israeli chopped salad; it’s so ubiquitous, it’s served at McDonald’s. Another brunch guest recounted an Israeli vacation some 35 years before of all eggplant, all the time.

That hasn’t changed. In a cramped grocery store, I count 14 eggplant preparations. At an al fresco lunch under a grapevine arbor at Tishbi Estate Winery in the Upper Galilee, I’m served a halved roasted eggplant dribbled with tahini and yogurt. Gur identifies it as “deconstructed” baba ghanoush and pronounces it the standard-bearer of “the New Israeli cuisine,” which just happens to be the name of her cookbook. Over lunch at Shmil Bama’abada restaurant in Jerusalem, chef/proprietor Shmil Holland explains his cooking as a fusion of Sephardic and Ashkenazi cuisine, as he puts it, “to have herring together with eggplant.”

Everybody I meet, like Holland, is highly self-conscious about Israeli cuisine. This isn’t merely arguments about where to get the best hummus, although there are plenty of those, or boasts about the coffee. As in America, it used to be undrinkable and is now a source of pride. Israel is a young country that in 60 years has invented itself and is now energetically inventing a cuisine to match.

“We say ‘the New Israeli cuisine.’ I find that funny,” says chef Amir Ilan of Hudson Brasserie in Tel Aviv. “It takes hundreds of years to make a cuisine. Even after 200 years, you in America don’t have a very established cuisine.”

The charming Rama’s Kitchen, set on a cliff with panoramic views of the Judean Hills, looks like a fairy-tale restaurant. I envision it springing up full-blown some night, with its wooden deck, pebble floors, friendly dogs and handmade food. Proprietress Rama Ben Zvi tells a harrowing tale of bringing running water and electricity, of building the very table I am eating on, of hiring Arab neighbors to cook alongside her and then being forced to let them go.

Maybe the best meal of the trip is at the lovely Upper Galilee home of chef Erez Komarovsky. He runs a cooking school there, where he demonstrates, and proselytizes for, Israeli cuisine. The house is surrounded by a hilly, tangled garden of buzzing bees, flitting butterflies, and most of what we pick and eat for lunch. What Komarovsky doesn’t grow or make, he buys locally. From his porch, he points to a village in the near distance where he bought the goat that we’re eating in the form of chops with fennel pollen and olive paste. Those chops, as well as the chicken livers with pomegranate molasses, chiles and figs, or a dozen other dishes, knock you over with flavor.

“Israel is a little rough,” he says. “The land, the people. We are stressed all the time. So I do not marinate. We do not have time to marinate. There could be a crisis tomorrow.”

That’s exactly what continues to disconcert me long after I return home to a blur of radio reports of settlements, attacks and occupation. For seven days, I eat meal upon meal that is sophisticated, provocative and delicious. I eat goat cheese that could out-goat California and France. The goat yogurt is creamier, tangier and tastier than any yogurt I’ve eaten before. From the first buttery danish rippled with halvah to the last lick of a halvah ice cream cone on my last afternoon, I am hooked on halvah, a sweet sesame paste that is the chocolate of Israel. All this in a country that to many Americans has one overwhelming association: war. (Or maybe two, a friend reminds me: war and Jesus.)

“Israel has a lot to offer,” Komarovsky said. “Politically, it’s a mess, but gastronomically, it’s very nice.”

IF YOU GO

• Ali Karavan: 1 Ha’dolfin St., Jaffa. A candidate for the best hummus in Israel.

• The Dining Hall: 23 Shaul Hamelech Blvd., Tel Aviv, thedininghall.rest-e.co.il/. A restaurant modeled on the dining hall of a kibbutz.

• Erez’s Galilean Cooking School: Mitzpe Matat, Galilee, www.erez-komarovsky.co.il or erezfood@gmail.com. Erez Komarovsky teaches his brand of new Israeli cooking.

• Herbert Samuel: 6 Koifman St., Tel Aviv. The room is beautiful. So is the food.

• Rama’s Kitchen: Nataf D.N. Harei Yehuda, www.ramak.co.il. Food and setting harmonize in this lovely spot.

• Shmil Bama’abada at The Lab: 28 Hevron Road, Jerusalem,shmilbamaabada.rest-e.co.il/. The sort of neighborhood spot everybody wants.

• Tishbi Estate Winery: Binyamina, Haifa district, www.tishbi.com. Eat a lunch of local goat cheeses and wood-oven-baked bread.

A fusion of Italian and Mediterranean food prepared by chef Yaron Shalev. With a high class bistro atmosphere, comfortable decor, and a fun bar, this restaurant has pleased Tel Aviv diners for over 5 years.

4 Berkowitz Street

Runner Up – Messa

“A luxurious hall of pleasures” is how Time Out describe Messa. Chef Aviv Moshe has a unique menu featuring both experimental and staple foods.

19 HaArba’a Street

Best New Restaurant – Abraxas North

Sit downstairs at the bar and eat in a relaxed atmosphere, or sit upstairs and eat in a luxurious celebrity-stuffed atmosphere. Whichevery you choose you’d better be quick as queues form outside this restaurant whose offers range from Shrimp Pitta to the more staple fried fish.

40 Lilienbaun Street

Chef of the Year – Yonatan Roshfeld of Herbert Samual

With an impressive international inspired menu, Herbert Samual has become one of Tel Aviv’s most loved restaurants since this chef took over.

6 Koifman Street

Runner Up – Rafi Cohen

Jerusalem was transformed by him, and now he is well on his way to do the same to Tel Aviv. Local ingredients with international inspiration are two key ingredients in this success story.

87 HaYarkon Street

Trendiest Restaurant – Charcuterie

Charcuterie is the result of a talented chef, a rustic spot in Jaffa’s flea market, some cool music, and loads of outside seating. With a huge menu ranging from meats to pasta, this is a great restaurant for a chilled meal.

3 Rabi Hanina Street, Jaffa Flea Market

Runner Up – Nanuchka

Probably one of the happiest bars in the Middle East – Georgian.

30 Lilienbaum Street

Best Meat Restaurant – NG

The birth of NG six years ago brought to Tel Aviv unrivaled cuts of succulent meat. And it isnt just the meat thats amazing!

5 Ahad HaAm Street

Israeli breakfasts are fresh, light, and big! by Flickr user Or Hiltch

Over the past ten years or so, Israel has experienced something of a culinary boom. Off the back of Israel’s hi-tech boom which has led to the country being dubbed Silicon Wadi, have modern, international restaurants opened there.

Many restaurants in Israel are kosher. This means they conform to Jewish food laws serving only meat killed in a special way, and not serving both dairy and meat products. This does not diminish their quality, although it is worth pointing out that most of the selection in dairy restaurants will be suitable for vegetarians, whilst there are usually some options suitable in meat restaurants.

Fresh juices are very popular by Flickr user Shayan (USA)

Having said this, many of Israel’s trendiest restaurants are not kosher and thus serve meat and dairy products, with some going as far as to serve even pork and shellfish which are forbidden in kosher restaurants.

Restaurants in Israel only survive if they are good. They say that if a restaurant survives two years, it is good, and if it survives, ten, it is an institution! Whilst as a tourist you don’t know what’s been around for how long, we have to say that the standard of food in Israel is generally high, especially in Tel Aviv, which we want to nominate as a world center of gastronony!

Israel’s National Dish?

Israel’s national dish is undoubtably regarded to be falafal although there is more to this than meets the eye. The sheer diversity of Israel’s population means that all varieties of cuisine can be found here, cooked often by people who have lived in the country itself. Recipies in restaurants as diverese as Ethiopian, Iraqi, and American, are often handed down through generations to the family members who run the restaurants today.

Image by Flickr user tomerlichtash

Drinking in Israel

Israel isn’t a country of drinkers, although has recently built up a reputation for its micro-breweries and wineries.

We’ve searched and eaten long and hard to bring you a selection of some of Tel Aviv’s top rated restaurants, and some of our favorites!

NG, 6 Ahad Ha’am Street in Neve Tzedek, is a meat restaurant, voted the best Meat Restaurant in Tel Aviv by Time Out for two years running, and picked by Haaretz newspaper as one of the top 5 restaurants in the city. The portions are big, the meat is tasty, and the ambience is great!

Moul Yam, in Tel Aviv Port, is the only restaurant in the city featured in “Les Grandes Tables du Monde”, the worldwide restaurant guide. It is considered by some to be the best in the country and is definetely the best in the city for fish.

Giraffe, 48 Ibn Gvirol St is a Thai restaurant which is always packed! The food is great and reminds Israelis of Thailand where many of them spend time travelling!

Sushisamba TLV, 27 HaBarzel St, was picked by Time Out Tel Aviv as the best Asian restaurant in the city.

Susannah, 9 Shabazi Street is a great little restaurant located in Neve Tzedek serving up all kinds of interesting Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes.

Orna & Ella, could almost be described as a Tel Aviv institution! The cafe located on Sheinkin Street is the cog behind the cool and trendy revolution which Tel Aviv has seen over the years. It is the place to be!