Jerusalem Restaurants
Restaurant prices are subject to 15.5% VAT (Value Added Tax; but food and drink taken in a hotel where one has stayed overnight is currently VAT-free). Service charges of 12-15% are generally added to the restaurant bill, if not a tip of this amount, depending on the quality of the service, is expected.
The prices quoted below are for a three course meal for one, including a bottle of house wine or equivalent:
$$$$ (over ILS180)
$$$ (ILS130 to ILS180)
$$ (ILS90 to ILS130)
$ (up to (ILS90)
Gastronomic
Offering a combination of modern and traditional French food with the ingredients and flavours of the Mediterranean, this charming restaurant in the heart of the city centre offers a high level of service and extensive wine list.
Rehov Ben Sira 1
Tel: (02) 624 2945.
Price: $$$$
This surprising gourmet restaurant is hidden away by the Old City wall, attached to a pilgrims' guest house. Enjoy classic French cuisine, accompanied by fine French wines, under the vaulted ceilings of this 100-year-old building. Dinner only.
Paratroopers Road (outside New Gate of the Old City)
Tel: (02) 627 9111.
Price: $$$
Excellent wines and top-quality Italian cooking are on offer at Primavera, the gastronomic fish and dairy restaurant of Sheraton Plaza Hotel in the city centre. Dishes are imaginative, using highest quality Israeli ingredients, and the setting is attractive with pale woods and flowers.
47 King George
Tel: (02) 629 8691.
Price: $$$$
Business
An Israeli-Oriental restaurant with a touch of Jewish-Kurdish cooking, Ima is located in a charmingly renovated house taking up several rooms and including a terrace. Private parking is available for guests. There is a separate business lunch menu that is good value.
189 Agrippas Street
Tel: (02) 624 6860.
Price: $$$
In a lively, youthful pedestrianised street at the heart of the city, this French gourmet kosher restaurant, with stone arches and elegantly laid tables, is rather different from its rowdy neighbours - especially in the evenings. It is open from lunchtime onwards for excellent southern French cooking, including good-value set business lunches.
18 Rivlin St.
Tel: (02) 623-2322
Price: $$$
Serving a range of French-Mediterranean-Italian dishes and with a good wine list, Shonka is a popular city-centre restaurant and reservations are advised. The dishes are simple and the décor modern making it an ideal place for business dining - the business lunch menu is particularly good value.
1 HaSoreg Street
Tel: (02) 625 7033.
Price: $$$
Trendy
The intimate interior, divided by stone arches and subdued lighting, offers the perfect setting for contemporary dishes combining local ingredients with French style. Arcadia deserves its reputation as one of Israel's best and most exciting restaurants; it is understandably popular with both visitors and locals.
Rehov Agrippas 10
Tel: (02) 624 9138.
Price: $$$$
This popular strictly-kosher city centre restaurant offers an extensive menu of North African and middle-eastern food in a Moroccan-inspired setting. It has recently been extended to encompass a restored wine cellar with low ceilings and arches. The atmosphere is completed with the plush cushions scattered around the tables for leisurely reclining.
3 Horkanus Street
Tel: (02) 624 5406.
Website: www.darna.co.il
Price: $$$$
Crowded, stylish and pricey, with wooden floors, bare stone walls and an attractive bar at its centre, this is a place to either sit with a drink or enjoy tasty, imaginative cooking (including set business lunch on weekdays) at either indoor or outdoor tables. A wide range of dishes include fresh salads, generous steak in wine and shallot sauce, spicy cajun chicken, fresh pasta, and a selection of fish and seafood dishes including salmon in champagne and saffron sauce. It's located where the city centre meets the upscale Rehavia neighbourhood.
1 Ben Maimon Street
Tel: (02) 566 5126.
Website: http://restobar.rest-e.co.il
Price: $$$
Budget
This smart and attractive yet unpretentious restaurant attached to the landmark YMCA hotel (across the road from the King David Hotel) specialises in above-average international meat dishes at very reasonable prices.
26 King David St.
Tel: (02) 569 2692
Price: $
This tiny, historic falafel stand has been a city-centre favourite since it opened in 1967. Like the many that have opened since, it has a small interior with seating space around the service counter. Staff fill your pita bread with falafel, chopped salads, hummus and tahina sauce, which you can then supplement at will from a tempting array of salads and sauces spread out on the counter.
19 King George Street
Price: $
This all-day restaurant serves a wide selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes in a charming old stone building in the Yemin Moshe district behind the gardens of the King David Hotel. Spread over three floors with a view over the Old City, the best seats are in the arches of the windows but these must be reserved.
12 Emile Botta Street
Tel: (02) 625 1967.
Price: $
Personal Recommendations
An atmospheric restaurant in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City. It is located in the basement of an ancient Crusader church and has a tiled interior, solid wooden tables, a huge chandelier and a fountain in the corner. The food is served in wooden or painted ceramic bowls. On Fridays, local Armenians come to the restaurant with home-cooked food which they share with visitors.
Armenian Patriarchate Road
Tel: (02) 627 3854.
Price: $$
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