As a tourist, you need a local to point you to to any city’s hidden gems. So when Barak Aharoni, executive chef of the Alena restaurant in boutique hotel, The Norman, invited me to his city for a foodie tour, my Wizz Air flight was booked before you could say falafel.
Aharoni’s Alena is in Israel’s top 20 restaurants, and such is his foodie following, he was invited, last month, to cook at Marylebone eaterie, Carousel for a week. This man knows his food.
Tall, dark and with a gentle air reminiscent of our favourite poster boy of Israeli food, Yotam Ottolenghi, Aharoni’s becoming a bit of a (culinary) rock star.
At 8am, Tel Aviv buzzed with activity as we hop into a taxi to Habshash, Aharoni’s spice supplier. This father and son business is tucked away in a unit in South Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Market. Founded in 1935 by Arie Habshash’s father, Arie now runs the shop with his sons supplying members of the public, restaurants and businesses.
It’s an Aladdin’s cave of nuts, spices, dried fruits, pulses, oils and other goodies. Eldest son, Ori, shows me a selection of their stock, inviting me to sniff and taste. Walnuts were sweet with no trace of tannic bitterness, and macadamia nuts, buttery and fresh enough to still feel oily inside. Pulses are clean and shiny – no sign of dust. Spices smell completely different to the dry powder you shake from a glass jar from the supermarket. Sumac — the produce of ground berries — still damp, and za’atar — predominantly green, as it should be, full of flavour. Dried pineapple is moist and chewy; dried blackberries similarly full of punchy flavour.
They also roast and grind spice mixes: “People have cried when they taste our dukkah (an Egyptian spice mix) as it takes them back to their grandmothers, who may not be alive anymore.”
Next stop, another Levinsky secret: Cafe Levinsky 41, a window from which Benny Briga, long haired modern hippy mixologist, serves non-alcoholic cocktails. Flowers, fruits and cordials line the shelves, as Briga assembles individual drinks that are a work of art. Coffees are also on offer for the small crowd perched on the ramshackle truck parked in front of the window.
My bespoke drink contains a syrup-preserved loquat, white cherry almonds, lemon geranium, a willowy basil flower, chunks of watermelon, lime and soda. Like nothing I’ve ever tasted — even if I feel faintly ridiculous wafting down the street with my foliage-filled cup.
Leaving Levinsky, we pick up warm bourekas from Penso. “It’s been here 80 years” says Aharoni, as we split flaky pastries loaded with cheese and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
A cab ride north and we’re in Jaffa — Tel Aviv’s most picturesque quarter, and home to one of the most famous hummus joints in the city. Abu Hassan has a service style reminiscent of Blooms. Plates slapped on the table by a surly waiter. The choice is small — hummus served plain or topped with ful (stewed broad beans) or with musabahah — warm chickpeas.
Aharoni orders us musabahah and it arrives with tiny bowls of lemony, garlicky sauce to pour over the hummus, plus a pillowy pita and plate of raw onion to munch on — a step too far for me. The hummus is smooth, warm and silky. All around us, people arrive, order, eat, wipe their plates with their bread and leave. It’s a quick fuel stop. “There will be queues out of the door within half an hour” explains Aharoni. “When the lunchtime rush begins.”
We head to back to the city where Arik Rosenthal’s Hakosem offers high end falafel and shawarma served by chefs in white jackets Persil would be proud of. Locals line up to eat, perched at shiny street-side tables.
“It’s the best street food you can get” says Aharoni, asking Rosenthal to limit the selection as he and I are, by now, already well fed.
Like a Jewish mother, Rosenthal’s toned down offer would feed a hungry army. Small bowls of rice topped with chick peas and onions; fresh, crisp lettuce coated in zingy lemony dressing; smooth hummus doused with peppery olive oil, coriander and chick peas; freshly fried falafel and thick slabs of deep-fried aubergine — crisp on the outside but buttery tender in the middle. A revelation. There are also crunchy, pickled vegetables and a plate of spicy shards of lamb, so full of flavour I’m unable to resist, despite my morning fressing.
We sip an icy cold, pink drink — a version of limonana with pomegranate — and, when we finally give wave the white flag on the mains, I find room to nosh a pot of creamy (but parev — coconut milk-based) mahalabi, topped with a layer of sweet, rose syrup on top. Dreamy.
“It’s street food, but Arik uses the best produce” explains Aharoni. “He treats this place like a chef restaurant. He went to culinary school then worked as a cook before opening his own place. This was a successful falafel place and Ari added shawarma to the menu, even though people told him they would not work together. It went really well.”
Our tour is over although Aharoni, tells me we’ve merely scratched the surface of Tel Aviv’s foodie finds. When can I go back?
