Our second part of our Tel Aviv travel guides rightly is dedicated to food. The cuisine in Israel is so eclectic and has a bit of everything. It’s also great for vegetarians, which I found really interesting. We ate our way through Tel Aviv in order to share our favorite places with you. Read below for our favorite picks. You can read our first guide to Tel Aviv, an itinerary to the city, here.
We made a mental list of the type of food we wanted to try while in Israel, ad methodically crossed it off of our checklists. This included: hummus, shakshuka, falafel, etc. Working your way through our list you’ll be able to try them all.
Manta Ray: Dedicate one night of your trip to dinner beachside as the sun sets. We had the most amazing seafood dinner at Manta Ray in Tel Aviv. This fine-dining experience has the most delicious food and an equally stunning sunset show just outside its windows. The restaurant’s interior is modern and sleek, with beautiful wood paneling and eclectic design details that really set the tone for the evening.
We made our reservation for 6:15pm, giving us a good twenty minutes or so to situate ourselves with an aperitif before the sun started setting. We started our meal with two aperol spritz’s, which were the best we had on the trip. Next, our waiter came around with a platter of local salads and bites to choose from. We honestly could have built an entire meal just from these offerings, as they were so flavorful. We had an extremely hard time choosing them, but ordered the hummus, eggplant dip, shrimp salad, ceviche and tzitki. This came with warm bread — which would become a theme throughout the trip. I can’t even begin to describe how much bread we ate, but kinda don’t regret it.
Next, we ordered a seafood pot to share that was so delicious. It included crabs, shrimp, calamari and mussels with pineapple and sweet potatoes in a coconut milk sauce with lemon grass, ginger, curry paste and rice. At this point we we were really content and full, but the chef sent out a dessert that was just too good to pass up. It was called Decadent Chocolate dessert, which had chocolate ganache with date and whiskey ice-cream. It was rich and chocolatey and so worth the extra calories. Manta Ray is the perfect spot for a sunset-lit date night and impresses on all levels. If you’re interested in going, make a reservation in advance. We also heard it is great for lunch on the beach!
Onza: Located in Jaffa just down the block from the Jaffa Flea market is Onza, a trendy restaurant making delicious Turkish and Ottoman cuisine. The restaurant is located on a super hip street in Jaffa, lined with restaurants, bars and outdoor seating.
After experiencing lots of typical Israeli cuisine, is was really nice to try Turkish food in an area of Tel Aviv that has a larger Arab population. I also loved the modern bar with oversized Edison bulbs hanging from the ceiling and the music they played throughout the restaurant, which made you feel like you are in a hookah bar.
We started the meal with a few sharing appetizers such as a tomato salad with chili, feta cheese and pomegranates, which was one of my favorite things that I ate in Israel. Pro tips: they have great tomatoes. We also had warm eggplant with butter and yogurt, which was similar to a baba ghanoush and was just delicious.
For our main courses, we had a lamb ban with onions, tahini, tomato and parsley on a warm bread that was very flavorful. We also had their fried cauliflower, which Israel is known for. We loved our meal at Onza and think it’s a great place to center a day of sightseeing around. You can schedule an early dinner and check out the Jaffa port and flea market before a meal in this cool part of town.
Abraxas North: Run by Israeli celebrity chef Eyal Shani, Abraxas North is located in downtown Tel Aviv and is a hard table to get. The vegetable sat this restaurant really shine to the point that you won’t realize you aren’t eating much meat (Although they have lots of meat and seafood options if that’s what you’re going for).
We went with another couple and ordered a ton of different dishes to share. Some of the highlights included their beets, an awesome version of avocado toast on challah bread, aubergine lines, spicy dips and a whole fish in a spicy tomato sauce. Everything we ate was great and tasted really fresh.
Castel: Israeli’s take breakfast seriously and one of their best-known cuisines is an egg dish called shakshuka, which I ate pretty much every day we were in Tel Aviv. It’s seriously that good. The dish is sautéed onions and peppers with tomato, cumin, paprika and other spices with poached eggs in it. It is seriously delicious and comes with a piece of warm challah bread. Make this a priority if you visit Israel. It’s easy to find throughout Tel Aviv, but we really liked the one at Castel on Dizengoff.
Port Sa’id: Also run by chef Eyal Shani, this restaurant loved by local hipsters serves up great food in a cool ambiance. We had a big group dinner here sampling everything from chicken liver mousse to tomato salad and loads of freshly baked challah bread. At the end, given it was my first night in Tel Aviv, someone ordered a challah French toast with ice-cream and raspberry preserves that was amazing.
In addition to these restaurants, I would absolutely recommend doing the 5-hour food tour I did with Delicious Eats, which I wrote about here. You will try 12 different Israeli delicacies and get a good orientation of Tel Aviv’s neighborhoods and history.
Israel Travel Guides:
Travel Guide: Old City Jerusalem, Israel
Travel Guide: Tel Aviv, Israel
Travel Guide: Where to Eat in Tel Aviv
Travel Guide: Masada, The Dead Sea & The Desert