🥙 Israeli & Mediterranean

Home-style Mediterranean, a different special each day, and hummus on another level

The hummus — with meat or without — is reason enough on its own, and the Tuesday couscous tastes like home. Around them the daily special rotates: osh palov, beef meatballs with rice, and on Saturday jachnun and spinach bourekas join in.

ℹ The special changes daily, and it's worth ordering ahead

Certified kosher kitchen — challah, Jerusalem salad and Shabbat meals delivered

On the restaurant side, the safe order is a Jerusalem salad that tastes like Israel for a moment, with schnitzel beside it. The challah is worth grabbing while it's still warm from the oven, and ahead of Shabbat you order a meal in advance — the delivery will come by taxi right to your hotel.

⚠ The regular menu is uneven; no deliveries on Shabbat itself

A sabich-style aubergine sandwich, lamb katayef, and breakfast with a view

The house sabich leads: breadcrumbed fried aubergine with potato, preserved lemon, egg and tahini, with a bright tomato salad alongside. After that, get to know the lamb katayef with potato tucked inside — the filling has something of a pastilla about it — and the grilled chicken thigh with rice.

⚠ The burger divides opinion

Israeli breakfast on the sand — shakshuka, fresh challah, fish cigars

The Mediterranean side here is seriously broad: hummus, spinach bourekas, jachnun, chraime with challah and schnitzel with matbucha, alongside a platter of dips and salads built for sharing. Order the challah separately — it is the first thing to run out.

ℹ Pool entry costs extra

A chef's tasting menu, one seating a night, fixed price, dishes that surprise

The top end of the category belongs to a chef who made his name at Timna back in Israel: a set tasting menu of 10–12 courses opening with a cocktail, one seating a day at 8pm. The DNA is Israeli — kubaneh, a reinterpretation of brik, Caesar salad with aged sirloin — and anything you don't eat, say so in advance and an alternative comes instead.

ℹ booking ahead is essential

King's Rice, booked in advance — the Persian kitchen's flagship dish

The beef dish here — King's Rice — counts among the few on the island that do real justice to meat, and it is ordered in advance along with the table. Around it: challah with pulled beef, an appetiser platter, and chicken with pumpkin purée that tends to run out by the second seating.

ℹ Tables are hard to come by — book ahead

Green falafel and thin schnitzel in soft pita, on Srithanu's temple road

The falafel here is green the way falafel should be, and the schnitzel — thin, tucked into a soft pita — has become the dish the place is known for. The hummus is good too, and anyone who only wants bread orders a pack of ten pitas a day ahead, with delivery an option.

ℹ Pita packs — order a day ahead

A run of stalls — falafel, shawarma, a fish counter and stuffed challah

The falafel comes as a big plate with a spread of sides, the shawarma mixes veal with chicken thigh, and there are stuffed challahs too — asado or schnitzel — alongside yeast cake, bourekas and Abulafia-style toast.

ℹ Some of the stalls are closed on Saturdays

Falafel in fresh pita with a table of salads — and seriously good chips

Thick, soft pitas are the base, and the falafel that goes into them ranks among the island's best. A whole table builds up around it — hummus, egg salad, matbucha and very good chips — and for bigger appetites there are skewers and pita with liver. Just remember: closed Saturdays.

ℹ Closed Saturdays

An intimate chef's dinner in a back garden — four courses, one table

Among the dishes that have crossed this table: eggplant salad, cabbage and mango, citrus labneh, zucchini pasta with sea bass, and a blue cheese ravioli that competes with the island's Italian kitchens. The menu rotates — four concept courses around a single table of twelve, by advance booking.

ℹ Selected dates, by advance booking — may no longer be running

An eight-course tasting menu of original, precise Middle Eastern fusion

Sabich given a twist of schnitzel-crumbed aubergine, katayef filled with lamb or chicken, and a raw-fish kibbeh nayeh with bulgur and sour cream — this is Middle Eastern cooking taken somewhere no other kitchen on the island attempts. Fridays bring the full tasting menu, adapted for vegetarians, vegans and anyone avoiding shellfish.

ℹ The tasting menu is served on Fridays, and prices are high for the island

An Israeli institution for jachnun, toasties and kubbeh — and sufganiyot in season

The jachnun is the headline, and it pays to come early — some days it's gone by noon. Around it sits a home-style menu that covers the cravings: meat kubbeh, a bagel toastie that's better than it has any right to be, and a comforting couscous soup, with sufganiyot joining in over Hanukkah.

ℹ The jachnun runs out early

Green falafel straight out of Israel, with kebab, schnitzel and shakshuka in pita

The kebab here is properly good, the hummus genuinely tasty, and there is shakshuka in pita and a chicken shawarma that holds up well — a far wider menu than a falafel stand usually promises.

ℹ Closed Saturdays

Challah stuffed with schnitzel or pulled asado, at the Srithanu market

Pulled asado inside a homemade challah is the reason to come — juicy, long-braised meat with matbucha that lifts the whole sandwich. The same challah also takes schnitzel, sabich and Moroccan fish, and there's delivery for anyone not nearby.

ℹ Parking at the market is difficult

Home-style Russian cooking — borscht, pelmeni and mashed potatoes like home

This is the Russian corner of the category: pelmeni, borscht, mashed potatoes and meatballs in tomato sauce, all in the home-style version. Part of the menu is Russian hardcore for those who know it; the pelmeni and borscht are the friendly way in to the rest.

ℹ The main branch is in Ban Tai; the Pantip stall is a different thing

Schnitzel and mash in Haad Rin, and mini schnitzels the kids keep asking for

The name is built on the schnitzel — properly fried, with mash beside it — and the mini schnitzels are the children's standing order. Round it out with the chopped salad, and on a lazy evening have the lot sent to the house.

Chickpea hummus and masabacha in Thong Sala, with green falafel alongside

There are two routes to a plate — classic hummus with whole chickpeas, or masabacha that turns out to be a mallow stew with a style of its own — and green falafel beside either, which you shouldn't skip. The pitas are less classic, but hot they improve a great deal.

ℹ The pitas aren't classic, and the price per plate is high

Toasted bagels and feta-eggplant shakshuka, late into the night

The toasted bagel and the bagel with omelette are the standing orders, and the shakshuka comes here in a feta and eggplant version. Schnitzel, Israeli salad and thin-crust pizza fill in the picture, and there's gluten-free bread for those who need it.

Thong Sala's schnitzel and chips — one plate feeds two kids

A comfort-food stop, and one of the Thong Sala favourites for anyone missing the tastes of home. The schnitzel belongs to the classic Israeli school — the kind a Tel Aviv institution would put its name to. Better eaten in, hot from the kitchen; how it survives a delivery ride stays an open question.

Moroccan cooking: slow tagine in a clay pot over coals

A French couple who lived in Morocco for years opened this place on the road from Srithanu to Hin Kong, and it's worth calibrating expectations: this is Moroccan-Muslim cooking, not the Moroccan-Jewish kitchen you may know from home. The lamb tagine arrives falling apart, with prunes, cinnamon and almonds. Book ahead, and come with patience — the pace here is slow.

⚠ The wait for food is long, and opinion is divided

The moussaka carries the place — a Greek taverna with ouzo and grilled fish

Moussaka is why the place stays in the memory — classic comfort food that does not always survive to the end of the evening. Grilled fish, souvlaki and roasted aubergine round out the table, the service is warm, and a shot of ouzo closes off the Greek side of things.

ℹ Closed Wednesdays, and worth checking it is open before you go

The only restaurant on the beach — pomelo salad, Burmese salad, falafel

Falafel with extra tahini inside — that's how to ask for it, so it stays moist — is the strong Israeli side, along with shawarma in pita and filo cigars. Round it out with pomelo salad or Burmese salad from the other half of the menu. Before you get on the boat or set off down the trail, call to check they're open.

ℹ reached by boat — better to confirm hours in advance

Home-made couscous, jachnun and hummus — an Israeli corner in Haad Rin

Real home cooking in Haad Rin, the kind of place you walk into and feel like family. The couscous is made in-house and comes with a rich vegetable soup; if you keep kosher, the schnitzel and chicken thighs use kosher meat, though there is no supervision on site. For the weekend you can also order food to take home — stuffed vegetables, schnitzel and fish.

The island's best shawarma, with chips cut from real potatoes

Shawarma is the core — among the best on the island — and the chips beside it are fried from real potatoes rather than something processed; worth asking for the oil to come up to a proper boil before they go in. Vegans get a version of their own, and beetroot kubbeh hides on the menu too.

Georgian khachapuri and khinkali, at a place that opens only after midday

One evening, one heavy meal: Georgian khinkali and khachapuri, at a place that opens only at 16:00. When it works, it justifies a whole cheat day; other times it stays nice and no more.

⚠ Uneven from visit to visit; opens only at 16:00

Turkish and Moroccan cooking in Hin Kong — book a table ahead

Demand here runs ahead of supply, and there are days when there is simply no free table. Anyone after an evening of different flavours — a break from the local kitchen — has found good reason to plan one step ahead.