The 8 Best Restaurants in Israel (2026)

Updated July 2026 · 8 picks

The best restaurants in Israel in 2026 include OCD and Mashya in Tel Aviv, Machneyuda in Jerusalem and Uri Buri in Akko. Israeli cooking has spent two decades becoming one of the most interesting things happening in the Mediterranean, and the best of it is spread across three cities rather than concentrated in one. Below are eight places genuinely worth planning around.

1. OCD — Kiryat HaMelacha, Tel Aviv

A single counter, one tasting menu, and some of the most precise cooking in Israel.

₪₪₪₪ SplurgeBest for Couples · Solo

OCD is a small counter restaurant in south Tel Aviv serving a single tasting menu to a room of diners seated around the kitchen. There is no à la carte, no choice, and no way to see the cooking happen other than to look up.

The format forces the kitchen to be exact, and it is — the cooking is technically ambitious and the menu changes often enough that returning is worthwhile. It is also one of the few restaurants in Israel where the experience is genuinely designed as an evening rather than a meal.

Seats are limited and it books ahead. If you are only going to make one restaurant reservation for a trip to Israel, this is a strong candidate.

Good to know: Book as far ahead as the reservations open — the counter is small and it fills.

Google Maps Website

2. Machneyuda — Machane Yehuda market, Jerusalem

The restaurant that changed Jerusalem — and it is kosher.

₪₪₪ UpmarketBest for Couples · Groups

Machneyuda opened next to the Machane Yehuda market and reset expectations for what Jerusalem dining could be. The kitchen is open to the room, the music is loud, the staff periodically dance on the bar, and the cooking is serious market-driven work underneath all of it.

It has become the restaurant most often named when anyone asks where to eat in Jerusalem, and its alumni have opened a good share of the city's other notable kitchens. That it manages all of this while kosher makes it more remarkable, not less.

Go for the energy as much as the food, take whatever the kitchen suggests, and do not expect a quiet conversation.

Good to know: Kosher, so closed Friday night and Saturday — plan Jerusalem dinners around that.

Google Maps Website

3. Uri Buri — Old City, Akko

The best seafood in Israel, in a stone house by the harbour in Akko.

₪₪₪ UpmarketBest for Couples · Groups

Uri Buri sits in an old stone building in Akko's walled Old City, a short walk from the fishing harbour, and it has spent decades as the seafood restaurant in Israel against which others are measured.

The cooking is deceptively simple: extremely fresh fish and shellfish, handled with restraint and paired with combinations that sound odd and work — the wasabi sherbet with salmon sashimi being the most quoted example. Portions are designed for ordering several dishes to share.

It is a real destination, roughly ninety minutes north of Tel Aviv, and it is worth building a day around. Combine it with the Old City, the Crusader halls and the souk.

Good to know: Order several half-portions rather than mains — it is how the menu is meant to be eaten.

Google Maps Website

4. Mashya — Mendeli Street, Tel Aviv

Modern Israeli cooking done with real polish, in a hotel that hides it well.

₪₪₪ UpmarketBest for Couples · Groups

Mashya is a Tel Aviv restaurant working in contemporary Israeli cooking — Middle Eastern foundations, technical execution, a menu built for sharing across many small plates.

It is one of the clearest expressions of what modern Israeli cuisine actually means: the flavours are local and familiar, the treatment is not. The room is more comfortable and less frenetic than the market restaurants, which makes it a better choice for a longer dinner.

A good pick for a first serious meal in Tel Aviv, because it lays out the vocabulary of Israeli cooking clearly before you go and eat the rest of the city.

Good to know: Order broadly across the small plates rather than one dish each — the menu is built that way.

Google Maps Website

5. George & John — The Drisco Hotel, Jaffa

Chef Tomer Tal's kitchen in a restored Jaffa hotel — ambitious and assured.

₪₪₪₪ SplurgeBest for Couples

George & John sits inside The Drisco, a meticulously restored nineteenth-century hotel in the American-German Colony in Jaffa, and it is among the most ambitious kitchens in Tel Aviv.

The cooking is contemporary and local, built around Israeli produce and the country's agricultural range, and it is served in a room that has been restored rather than decorated. The setting is a genuine part of the appeal — few Israeli restaurants have this much building behind them.

It suits a proper evening rather than a quick dinner, and the tasting menu is the way to see what the kitchen can do.

Good to know: Have a drink in the hotel bar first — the restored building is worth ten minutes on its own.

Google Maps Website

6. Taizu — Menachem Begin / Yehuda Halevi, Tel Aviv

Asian cooking across five cuisines, done at a level Israel had no right to expect.

₪₪₪₪ SplurgeBest for Couples · Groups

Taizu works across the cuisines of the countries around the Tropic of Cancer — Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Cambodian and Chinese — rather than picking one, and it has been one of Tel Aviv's most consistently excellent restaurants for years.

The concept could easily be shallow and it is not: each cuisine is treated seriously and the kitchen has the technique to move between them. The room is large, loud and good-looking, and the cocktail list is strong.

It is a change of gear from the Middle Eastern cooking that dominates the rest of this list, which is exactly why it belongs on it.

Good to know: Good for a group — the menu is built for sharing and there is something for every eater.

Google Maps Website

7. North Abraxas — Lilienblum Street, Tel Aviv

Eyal Shani's chaotic, brilliant kitchen — the whole cauliflower started here.

₪₪₪ UpmarketBest for Couples · Groups

North Abraxas on Lilienblum is Eyal Shani's Tel Aviv restaurant, and it is where a good deal of the current Israeli approach to vegetables was worked out — including the whole roasted cauliflower that has since appeared on menus worldwide.

Dishes arrive on paper rather than plates, the bread is torn and thrown, and the whole thing is deliberately unruly. Underneath the theatre the produce is exceptional and treated with real seriousness.

Sit at the counter if you can. It is not a restaurant for a quiet business dinner and it is the better for it.

Good to know: Sit at the counter and order the cauliflower — yes, really.

Google Maps Website

8. Shila — Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv

Sharon Cohen's fish-led kitchen, an enduring Tel Aviv favourite.

₪₪₪ UpmarketBest for Couples · Groups

Shila has been a fixture of the Tel Aviv scene for years, built around fish and seafood cooked with a Mediterranean sensibility and a kitchen that has never chased fashion.

The appeal is consistency and generosity rather than novelty — good raw fish, whole fish off the grill, and a room that is comfortable to spend an evening in. It is the sort of place locals book repeatedly rather than visit once.

A reliable choice when you want an excellent dinner without the production of a tasting menu.

Good to know: Ask what came in that day rather than ordering from the printed menu.

Google Maps Website

Frequently asked questions

Which Israeli city has the best food?

Tel Aviv has the deepest and most varied restaurant scene by a wide margin, and it is where most of the tasting-menu cooking happens. Jerusalem has fewer restaurants but a distinct and increasingly confident identity of its own. Akko and the Galilee are where the best seafood and Arab-Israeli cooking is, and they are worth the drive.

Do I need to book restaurants in Israel?

For anything on this list, yes, and often well ahead. Israelis eat late and book heavily, Thursday and Friday nights are the busiest of the week, and the smaller tasting-menu restaurants release limited seats. Friday lunch is a real institution and books out too.

How much does dinner cost in Tel Aviv?

A main course at a good Tel Aviv restaurant sits in the mid range by European standards, and tasting menus at the top places cost considerably more. Israel is not a cheap country to eat out in — but the value at the mid-market level, particularly in markets and hummus places, is exceptional.

Is tipping expected in Israeli restaurants?

Yes. Around 12% is standard and it is genuinely expected, since service is often not included in the bill. Check the bill, since some restaurants now add service automatically. Cash tips are still common though card tipping is increasingly available.

What should I actually eat in Israel?

Beyond the obvious hummus and falafel: whole grilled fish, mezze served as a table of small plates, anything with tahini, market-driven seasonal cooking, and the Middle Eastern-Balkan-North African crossover that defines modern Israeli kitchens. Order more small dishes and fewer mains than you would at home — that is how the food is designed to be eaten.

1. OCD — Kiryat HaMelacha, Tel Aviv

2. Machneyuda — Machane Yehuda market, Jerusalem

3. Uri Buri — Old City, Akko

4. Mashya — Mendeli Street, Tel Aviv

5. George & John — The Drisco Hotel, Jaffa

6. Taizu — Menachem Begin / Yehuda Halevi, Tel Aviv

7. North Abraxas — Lilienblum Street, Tel Aviv

8. Shila — Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv

Frequently asked questions

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