Jerusalem Restaurants

1 more image

If you are looking for tasty fish and seafood in the center of Jerusalem, and are not on a tight budget, Dophin-Yam is the place for you.
Dolphin-Yam is located in the historical neighborhood of Nachalat Shiv'a, which is today one of the main dining areas of Jerusalem, open 7 days a week.
The menu has a rich variety of fish and seafood, and also a few meat courses and pastas. My baked sea-bass was very tasty, and Ofrah was very happy with her shrimps.
The ambience was intimate and quiet, with low-volume good music in the background. The service was very good.

For a lovely relaxed meal on the edge of a lake, watching the swans go by, try the “Seven Species,” a fish and dairy restaurant in the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. The menu, which changes with the seasons, tries to incorporate the seven species mentioned in the Bible – wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey.

When you get to the Botanical Gardens, tell the guard at the booth in the parking lot that you are going to the restaurant. That way you get in free, without paying the entrance fee. If you come during the day, don’t forget to stroll around either before or after the meal.

If the season is right (spring, in particular), the flowers will be blooming in a riot of colors and the birds will be chirping. Marked footpaths will take you up and down the hills, past a waterfall, little brooks, wooden pagodas, ancient caves and burial niches and a tropical greenhouse that looks like a temple. The garden is divided into sections, with native flora from different parts of the world.

The food at the restaurant is a mixed bag – some dishes are better than others (which is probably so for any restaurant). Many contain liberal sprinklings of fresh herbs, or at least make that claim on the menu. My husband tried the fish kebab (okay) that came with a garlic dressing and either mashed potatoes or a dish of cooked grains. My daughter had little vegetable patties in a variety of flavors – spinach, sweet potato, etc., again with a garlic dressing (a bit too sharp for my taste), and a rather measly portion of fresh greens on the side. My son lucked out. He got a plate full of delicious ravioli with an assortment of fillings, swimming in a very good cream sauce.

Before the meal, the waitress brought out a wooden tray of rolls, olives and a little saucer of something purplish, which she said was purple onion butter (it tasted more like margarine to me). The rolls were a bit dense and doughy but each one had a little surprise baked inside – a pitted olive, a basil leaf, and so on.

Favorite Dish: Best of all was our shared dessert – a slightly frozen lemon mousse cake (which was supposed to be decorated with mint leaves, but maybe they ran out). It came with a pot of “7 species” tea, an interesting blend of herbs that looked rather like bits of twigs and leaves, but nice.
(If you belong to the Friends of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, the restaurant knocks 10% off your bill).

2009 update: On my last swing around the garden, I saw that the Seven Species has closed down, but a branch of Cafe Caffit has opened there.

Did your mother tell you it wasn’t polite to read at the table? At Tmol Shilshom, a cafe-bookshop in Nahalat Shiva, you can forget about your mom’s idea of proper dining etiquette. Here you can read, write and eat at the table and no one will say a word.

“Tmol Shilshom” (“Only Yesterday”) is the title of an epic novel by S.Y. Agnon, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966. In the book, the protagonist frequents a workers' club which seems to have been the inspiration for this Jerusalem cafe: “The club consisted of two rooms - one for eating and drinking, the other for reading. But no one bothered to read in the reading room or dine in the dining room. One ate and read, the other read and drank. People roamed freely from one room to the other.”

Located in a 130-year old stone building, tucked away in a courtyard at the end of a little alleyway that you might easily overlook, Tmol Shilshom is just the place for those who are sick and tired of gleaming chrome and urban chic. There is not a matched piece of furniture in sight.

At the top of a narrow flight of stairs are two rooms with arched ceilings, old-fashioned chandeliers and old tiled floors. Lining the walls between the tables and chairs – an odd assortment of antiques, some of which have seen better days – are books, old and new, in wooden cabinets or on open shelves built into niches in the wall. The books are for sale, as are the dishes you eat on. The literary theme is carried through in the menus, which look like books (ours was "Treasure Island").

Favorite Dish: One room is a dairy restaurant-cafe. The other is used for lectures, meetings with authors (some of them quite famous) and other cultural events. We were greeted warmly and invited to stay for the poetry-reading scheduled that evening, but we were in a hurry and just had time for a luxurious hot chocolate drink made from real squares of chocolate (15 shekels). The brass glass holders, handcrafted by Eli who has a workshop in the courtyard, were also for sale. We’ll be back.

2009 update: We did go back, and had an interesting variation on a pasta-lentil dish known as kushari. In Egypt this is cheap street food Here it was served very elegantly with a garlicky yoghurt topping and not just dumped in a bowl and smothered in tomato sauce, which seems to be the Egyptian custom.

4 more images

Papa Andreas Restaurant is located in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the center square of the Muristan section. We climbed the stairs to the large, spacious roof, and had a very good lunch (the usual Middle Eastern fare) with a great view all around us: The Muristan square with its small fountain right below us; the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer very close on one side, and the Holy Sepulchre Church nearby; the roofs and balconies of the Christian Quarter all around; the golden Dome of the Rock a bit further, and the Mount of Olives in the distance: the most inspiring background for an enjoyable meal. For a rainy day, there is also an indoor dining hall one floor down.

2 more images

As expected in this region bread and vegetables are important part of the meal, pita bread or other will be served and always nice fresh vegetables. In this place we had also nice humus as well as some mixed grilled meat.

Cafe Geo is more like a kiosk place in the old city, it is situated in a peaceful street in the old city by the Danish mission, yet a good place for a break in between visiting places in the old city.

This is another small cosy café I spotted while strolling from the old city back to the bus station. Well depends on the season you visit, but in the winter you can get warm up here and in the hot summer to get some cold fresh drink.

This coffee place, which I am not sure if it belong to Rimon networks or not located in a great location, at the new centre with terrace facing the old city, Jaffa gate and the King David Tower. Best view for a coffee break for sure.