Even when you have lived in Tel Aviv, as I have, and return regularly to visit relatives, a culinary tour of the place can show you a side of Israel you haven’t seen before.

Such was the case this summer. Through the Twitterverse and fellow blogger connections, my husband, Jonathan, and I met Inbal Baum, a 31-year-old former Washington area lawyer who founded Delicious Israel. We explored the nooks and crannies of nameless storefronts and stalls with awnings, including some in the city’s famous Carmel Market.

At one of them, a Yemenite woman showed me how to make lachuch (LA-hooh), a spongy, yeasted pancake akin to the injera of Ethi­o­pia.

Baum was insistent that we eat at Sheila, a chic seafood restaurant not far from the beach on the northern, old port end of Tel Aviv. It hadn’t shown up in the small bit of advance trip intel I had done, but our guide was spot-on. Chef and proprietor Sharon Cohen, originally from Jerusalem, tends to shy away from the spotlight. But his food deserves celebrity status.

The 36-year-old chef gets up early enough to bid at the daily 4 a.m. fishermen’s catch held in nearby Jaffa. His cuisine is influenced by Mediterranean bounty and flavors, by his Persian and Yemenite ancestry and by his work at the now-defunct Sakura, a Japanese restaurant in Tel Aviv. His execution is impeccable…Read More>>

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