Tel Aviv is a city that prides itself on its energy and nightlife. As such, a booming culinary scene is absolutely essential. While delicious Middle Eastern food may always rule the Tel Aviv restaurant scene, as will the wide variety of cuisines available, everything from Italian to tapas to Indian, there are certain trends we’ve seen crop up over the last few years that we’re loving.
Vegan cuisine
It used to be difficult to find a vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel. Now not only is it much easier to indulge in your vegan desires, but there’s also a wide variety of vegan restaurants to choose from. Persian-inspired, Georgian-inspired, and of course vegan food for the extremely health conscious. In the last few years, it has become more difficult to choose which vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel you will visit than it is to find one.
Pop-up restaurants
It took a while for this trend to reach us from New York, but now that it’s here we hope it’s here to stay. Pop-up restaurants are restaurants that ‘pop-up’ in different locations, bringing with them a renowned chef and specialty cuisine. These restaurants only exist for a limited time, often one week. The house is always packed, the food is always top-notch, and within a few days you’ll have a brand new restaurant to try in the exact same space. The Festival of Food is running six weeks’ worth of pop-up restaurants, meaning six different world-class eateries, all in Tel Aviv.
Market restaurants
Picture the atmosphere at a great market. Open-air, friendly, you can view up-close everything you are purchasing and how it’s being prepared. Now apply those same principles to a restaurant. Tempting, isn’t it? One of the main trends we’ve seen in the Tel Aviv culinary scene in 2014 are these market-style restaurants that take advantage of the city’s great weather and let you see and speak to the chef creating your entrée. Patrons are even welcome to watch the chef as he cooks. Not only does this make for a great, relaxed meal out on the town, but it helps quell the fears of even the most paranoid diner.
Sushi
Okay, with Tel Aviv home to the third-highest sushi consumption per capita in the world, we can’t exactly call sushi a new trend. What we do find exciting for this year is how closely some of our sushi restaurants have been following the sushi trends in Japan. Instead of waiting months or even years for new varieties of sushi to make their way to Tel Aviv, we’re starting to see an almost immediate adoption of new tastes and techniques.
