The 7 Best Desserts in Tel Aviv (2026)

Updated August 2026 · 7 picks

The best desserts in Tel Aviv are the ones the city invented or adopted: chocolate babka from the bakeries, halva ice cream, malabi from a street window, knafeh in Jaffa and tahini-based patisserie. Most are eaten standing up and cost under ₪30. Seven worth going out of your way for, below.

1. The chocolate babka — Bakeries citywide

The Tel Aviv bake that conquered New York and London.

₪₪ Mid-range

The chocolate babka — a yeasted, layered loaf shot through with dark chocolate and soaked in syrup — is the single most successful Israeli baking export of the last twenty years, and Tel Aviv is where the modern version was refined.

Uri Scheft's Lehamim is the origin point of the wave that produced Breads Bakery in New York, and the city's better bakeries all now make a version, some with halva, tahini or cinnamon instead of chocolate.

It is best warm and on the day it is baked, which means buying it in the morning rather than the evening.

Good to know: Friday morning is the biggest baking session of the week — go early and buy two.

Google Maps Website

2. Malabi from a street window — Carmel Market, Jaffa and the promenade

Cold, pink, cheap and perfect on a humid Tel Aviv evening.

₪ Budget

Malabi is the city's summer dessert: a cold set milk pudding in a plastic cup, topped with rose syrup, crushed peanuts and shredded coconut, handed over a counter for the price of a coffee.

It is sold from small windows and kiosks around the Carmel Market, in Jaffa and along the promenade, and it exists because it is exactly the right thing to eat when it is 30 degrees at 10pm.

There is no upmarket version worth seeking out. The street cup is the correct format.

Good to know: Ask for extra peanuts. The texture contrast is the whole thing.

Google Maps Website

3. Knafeh in Jaffa — Jaffa

Hot cheese, syrup and shredded pastry, cut from a tray the size of a table.

₪ Budget

Knafeh is the great Levantine dessert and Jaffa is where to eat it in Tel Aviv: sheets of stretchy white cheese under orange shredded pastry, baked, drenched in sugar syrup and scattered with pistachio, cut to order from enormous round trays.

It is served hot, it is intensely sweet, and it is meant to be shared with coffee rather than eaten alone at the end of a large meal.

The flea market area and the streets around the clock tower are where to look, and most places open on Saturday.

Good to know: Only eat it hot from the tray — reheated knafeh is a completely different and worse thing.

Google Maps Website

4. Halva ice cream — Citywide

Sesame, sugar and cold — the most Israeli scoop you can order.

₪ Budget

Halva ice cream is the flavour to order in Tel Aviv: sesame paste and sugar folded through a dairy or vegan base, usually with crumbled halva through it, and it tastes like nothing else in the international ice cream canon.

Nearly every gelateria in the city carries a version, along with tahini, date and sometimes a labneh or Turkish coffee flavour, and the vegan shops do it particularly well because tahini needs no dairy.

The city's ice cream culture is at its most visible on Saturday evening, when the whole population appears to be walking around holding a cone.

Good to know: Ask for halva with tahini swirled through — most places will do it as a combination.

Google Maps Website

5. The Neve Tzedek patisseries — Neve Tzedek

European technique, Israeli flavours, and the prettiest streets to eat them in.

₪₪₪ Upmarket

Neve Tzedek's cafes and small patisseries do the polished end of Tel Aviv dessert — tarts, entremets, laminated pastry and cakes made with proper technique, frequently reworked with tahini, halva, date or citrus.

The neighbourhood is the most attractive in the city, with low nineteenth-century buildings and narrow streets, and the pavement tables make a coffee and a cake into an hour rather than ten minutes.

Prices are Neve Tzedek prices. You are paying for the street as much as the pastry, and it is worth it once.

Good to know: Combine with a walk down Shabazi Street and the designer shops along it.

Google Maps Website

6. Sufganiyot at Chanukah — Bakeries citywide

For eight days a year the city loses its mind over filled doughnuts.

₪₪ Mid-range

In the weeks around Chanukah, Tel Aviv's bakeries turn their windows over to sufganiyot — fried filled doughnuts that have escalated far past the traditional jam version into pistachio cream, halva, salted caramel, tahini and whatever else the pastry chefs can pipe into them.

The competition between bakeries is genuine and reported on in the press each year, with queues forming for the notable ones.

They cost considerably more than a doughnut should — ₪15–₪30 each is normal for the elaborate ones — and everyone buys them anyway.

Good to know: Only worth it in December. Out of season they are ordinary supermarket doughnuts.

Google Maps Website

7. The Carmel Market halva stalls — Carmel Market

Blocks of sesame halva in thirty flavours, sold by weight, tasted freely.

₪ Budget

The halva stalls in the Carmel Market are a spectacle before they are a dessert: great slabs of sesame halva in dozens of flavours — pistachio, chocolate, coffee, vanilla, cardamom — sliced to order and sold by weight.

The sellers hand out samples as a matter of course, so tasting your way along is expected rather than cheeky.

It travels well and keeps, which makes it the best edible thing to take home from Tel Aviv, and it costs a fraction of what the same product sells for abroad.

Good to know: Buy a small piece of several flavours rather than a slab of one — they will cut whatever you ask.

Google Maps Website

Frequently asked questions

What is malabi?

A cold, wobbly milk pudding served in a plastic cup under a slick of rose or raspberry syrup, with crushed peanuts or coconut on top. It is sold from street windows and kiosks for around ₪12–₪18, it is the city's classic summer dessert, and it is best eaten within a minute of buying it.

What is knafeh?

A Levantine dessert of stretchy white cheese under shredded pastry or semolina, baked and soaked in sugar syrup, served hot and orange from a huge round tray. Jaffa and the Arab towns do the best versions in Israel. It is enormously sweet and meant to be shared.

Is tahini really used in desserts here?

Constantly. Tahini and halva turn up in ice cream, cookies, brownies, babka and cheesecake, and the combination of sesame and sugar is one of the defining flavours of modern Israeli pastry. If a dessert menu offers a tahini version of something, order that one.

What do desserts cost in Tel Aviv?

Roughly ₪12–₪20 for malabi or a scoop of ice cream, ₪18–₪35 for a bakery pastry or a slice of babka, and ₪45–₪70 for a plated dessert in a restaurant. The street end is very good value; the restaurant end is priced like the rest of Tel Aviv.

Are dessert places open on Shabbat?

Many are. Tel Aviv is the most secular city in Israel and its ice cream shops, cafes and Jaffa's dessert places generally operate on Saturday. Kosher-certified bakeries close from Friday afternoon until Saturday night, so buy your babka on Friday morning.

Where do I find good vegan desserts?

Everywhere. Tel Aviv has one of the highest concentrations of vegan eating anywhere, and vegan ice cream, cakes and pastries are standard rather than niche. Tahini and halva help — a lot of traditional Israeli sweets are dairy-free to begin with.

1. The chocolate babka — Bakeries citywide

2. Malabi from a street window — Carmel Market, Jaffa and the promenade

3. Knafeh in Jaffa — Jaffa

4. Halva ice cream — Citywide

5. The Neve Tzedek patisseries — Neve Tzedek

6. Sufganiyot at Chanukah — Bakeries citywide

7. The Carmel Market halva stalls — Carmel Market

Frequently asked questions

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