TRAVEL + L E I S U R E / M AY 2 0 1 7 105
simply prepared. We had the sense that Jeremias was toying
with our assumptions about what Israeli food should be.
How else to explain the fl ash-seared nuggets of tuna in a
creamy sea of olive oil and yogurt? Who, but a trickster deity
of the kitchen, would have looked at a plate of thinly sliced
salmon, soy sauce pooling in the gentle folds, and thought,
What this needs is a scoop of wasabi ice cream?
In 2012, Jeremias opened a hotel near Uri Buri called
the Efendi: 12 airy rooms in a painstakingly refurbished
Ottoman palace. Nearby, he has an ice cream shop,
Endomela. He took us there the morning after our dinner
to sample fl avours like cardamom and guava. I had never
tried cardamom ice cream before, not in Israel, not
anywhere, and like so many of the things I’d tasted on the
trip, it made me think about how much the country’s cuisine
had evolved since the days of orange syrup on my father’s
kibbutz. Later, in the marble lobby of the Efendi, I asked
Jeremias if he had changed his own cooking since opening
Uri Buri back in that era. Frowning and placing his hands
on his belly, he invoked an ancient Hebrew expression:
“God forbid if not.”THE DETAILS
HOTELS
Akkotel This 16-room
boutique hotel is embedded
within Akko’s old city wall.
The rooftop café offers a
superb view of the skyline
and the Mediterranean.
Doubles from US$200;
akkotel.com
Carmey Avdat Farm Built
on the site of a 1,500-year-
old Nabatean settlement on
the historic spice route
through the Negev desert,
this working farm near Sde
Boker includes a winery and
six modest but comfortable
cabins with stunning desert
views. Doubles from US$174;
carmeyavdat.com
Efendi Hotel A hotel situated
within a pair of renovated
Ottoman-era mansions in
Akko run by restaurateur
Uri Jeremias. It has 12 rooms
with preserved trompe
l’oeil ceilings, a restored
400-year-old hammam, and
a 900-year-old cellar turned
wine bar. Doubles from
US$330; efendi-hotel.co.ilRESTAURANTS
Endomela Jeremias’s ice
cream shop in Akko, up the
street from his restaurant,Uri Buri, is a showcase for
flavours native to Israel—
including cardamom, rose
water, and halvah. Ha-
Hagana St; +972-4/955-0481
Habait Be’EinHud Inside this
hidden gem in Ein Hawd with
sweeping views of the Mount
Carmel range and the sea,
there is no menu, only an
endless parade of deliciously
authentic Palestinian meze
and meat dishes. US$31 per
person; +972-5/380-94937
Majda This diminutive,
unpretentious restaurant in
Ein Rafa, in the hills outside
Jerusalem, has earned an
outsize reputation thanks to its
playful way of turning regional
staples—from falafel to
kebabs—on their heads.
Entrées US$21–US$35;
majda.co.il
Uri Buri The Uri is for owner
Uri Jeremias, while the Buri
is for fish. And fish—along
with a choice of more than
80 Israeli wines—is what
you’ll get at this spot in Akko
overlooking theMediterranean.
It’s prepared in creative ways
that reflect the sensibilities
of the chef. Entrées US$18–
US$35; Ha-Hagana St;
+972-4/955-2212Oh, but there was. Despite her promise, she set down four
more plates before fi nally leaving us. By the end of two hours,
we had somehow vanquished most of 30 dishes.
As we staggered out of the restaurant, an Israeli tour
bus pulled up. Israelis—Jewish Israelis—love Arab
cooking. Maybe it has something to do with a hunger for
a certain kind of authenticity, a visceral connection to the
land that the Jewish people only dreamed of during all those
years in exile eating matzo ball soup. Whatever the reason,
Ein Hawd has benefi ted from Habait’s popularity in at
least one unexpected way. The village got connected to the
electrical grid only 10 years ago, after an executive from
the national power company came to the restaurant for
lunch and learned that her amazing meal had been
cooked on a stove powered by a generator.
W
e continued on to Akko, also known as Acre,
an ancient walled city on the sea near the
Lebanese border. The route followed the dips
and curves of the Mediterranean coast before
plunging into a tunnel bored through Mount Carmel, the
ridge that lies just below Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.
We stopped at a lively beach nestled in the hammock of
shoreline between Haifa and Akko, where locals snacked on
watermelon and puff ed on hookahs. Sitting there, listening
to the competing streams of techno surging from the sound
systems of multiple cafés, we could see the medieval contours
of Akko in the distance, the old clock tower and the pine-
green minaret rising above the rough stone houses and the
famous seawall. The city is known for an unusual coming-of-
age tradition: boys become men in the eyes of their friends by
diving 30 feet from that wall into the sea. As we strolled along
the top of the wall that evening, we saw a young man take
a running leap and plunge headfi rst into the waves.
Come morning, fi shmongers would set out plastic crates
of their gleaming catch in the snaking stone alleyways of
the shuk, and in the little dens built into the walls, hummus
maestros would dole out bowls of the famous Akko version—
chunky, with a topping of whole boiled chickpeas and
minced parsley. Akko is what is known in Israel as a ‘mixed
city,’ home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews. During the
Crusades, it served as the main port for traders bearing
goods bound for Jerusalem, and it retains the relatively open-
minded sensibility of port cities everywhere. That spirit of
inclusivity is what inspired the chef Uri Jeremias to make
it his home. “We should live together,” he explained after
our meal, “because there is no other choice.”
Jeremias, a Buddha with a Moses beard, had never
worked in the food industry before opening Uri Buri in
- The restaurant has since become renowned for
unpretentious seafood that defi es categorisation, ethnic
or otherwise. As Jeremias explained, “What the dishes have
in common is that I like to eat them.” We agreed to let the
kitchen choose our dishes, omakase-style. Each featured
a surprising combination of the freshest ingredients,
TRAVEL + LEISURE / MAY 2017 107