When I think of Rehovot, I think of smart people doing smart people things, not of a culinary hot spot. But I guess those smart people have to eat somewhere, and the newly opened Amaya offers them the chance to enjoy a truly special meal.
Amaya, named after a mountaintop in Spain, is headed by chef Dudu Ben Abu, 31. When Dudu came to our table (I took Cliff, my favorite husband, with me), he told me, “You reviewed one of my restaurants, Rashel, in Ashkelon, a few years ago.”
Rashel, a very good Moroccan restaurant, now relocated to the Tel Aviv Port, is still going strong, although Dudu is no longer involved. However, it turns out our affiliation goes even further back.
Dudu started out with one of Israel’s best-known chefs, Meir Adoni, who now has several restaurants abroad, at a restaurant called Lumina in the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv. Adoni.
When my foodie son, Netanel, was about 11 years old, we took him to Lumina for a special occasion. Within minutes, he was in the open kitchen and asked if he could “apprentice” there. Once a week for about six months, he would take the bus by himself to Lumina after school, and my husband would plan to stay late at work in Rosh Ha’ayin and then pick him up after the dinner service, with my son often serving Cliff a meal he had personally cooked.
Only in Israel would the restaurant not be worried about insurance issues (and have the patience to teach a very talkative 11-year-old), and only in Israel would his mother let an 11-year-old take the bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv by himself.
“I remember a little kid running around the kitchen,” Dudu told me. “He would help the chefs cook. It was my first job, so I was focused on learning as much as I could.”
He has certainly learned a lot. Before I get to the food, let me tell you about the cocktails. Now, as I’ve written here before, I am not a cocktail expert like my friend Laura Cornfield from my Ladies Who Drink group, who buys every cocktail gadget she can find on Amazon and knows how to make great cocktails. (By the way, there is now a spin-off from our group called Men Who Love Ladies Who Drink.) But I know what I like, and the cocktails, headed by Gabi the mixologist, are outstanding.
I tried two of the cocktails that Gabi recommended – the French Club (NIS 78), which had two types of rum, a sugar syrup with strawberries that had been clarified in milk (I checked that part twice), and banana liquor. It was delicious – not too sweet and not strong.
I also tried the Bobby Brown, a whiskey-based drink that had been fat-washed and then frozen. It came in a glass with a very tall stem, which was fun to drink from.
NOW FOR the food. Dudu describes the concept as “seasonal Mediterranean food at the highest level of fine dining that is also good value for money.” The menu will change four times a year to incorporate seasonal produce, he explained, and the kitchen is as “zero-waste” as possible.
The menu is not huge, but there are plenty of options. I actually prefer a restaurant that does a smaller menu well. We didn’t actually order anything, but Dudu brought us a nice variety of dishes to try.
For now, the menus are only in Hebrew, although English menus will be available soon. There’s also a DJ every night with music that’s fun but not too loud.
We started with the Roses Bread (NIS 44), a type of kubaneh made with brown butter and served with two dips – an eggplant and pumpkin spread and an eggplant cream. The bread was fresh from the oven and irresistible. We also tried a dish called Spicy (NIS 32), which was a carpaccio of spicy peppers that was balanced by mint yogurt. A tad spicy for my Ashkenazi palate, but if you like spicy food, don’t skip this.
But the outstanding appetizer was the beets (NIS 78) – 40 layers of beets in a gratin style and a beurre blanc of borsht. I’ve never eaten anything like it before. I also really enjoyed the cauliflower tabbouleh salad (NIS 78) with labaneh.
All sauces, dressings, and condiments are, of course, homemade.
Cliff and I shared two main dishes, one of which was my only disappointment of the night. I found the tortellini (NIS 95) stuffed with mangold in a hamusta broth a little sour. But the other dish, the bluefin tuna steak (NIS 195), was outstanding. Dudu gets his fish fresh every day from a well-known fisherman in Ashdod, and the tuna, served with a demi-glace of root vegetables and shallot chips, had us dueling for the last bite.
Now comes the part where I tell you I was too full for dessert. But first, a short digression. I was recently at a bar mitzvah where I met one of my readers, Jonah, which is always fun.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” he began. “You always say you’re too full for dessert. What kind of food critic doesn’t order dessert?”
In meat restaurants, I often find parve desserts not very exciting. But this was a dairy restaurant, and I didn’t want to disappoint Jonah, so we tried two desserts, each one an edible painting. One was a new dessert that was just added to the menu – blueberry cream puffs with fresh blueberries and a blueberry sauce. The other was a chocolate-hazelnut concoction that is worth driving to Rehovot for.
Speaking of driving, the restaurant is on a main street, and it’s a little complicated to find the parking lot behind it. The easiest way to get there is to write “Golda parking lot” in Waze. It has blue and white parking that seems to charge for parking even at night. We arrived at 7:30 p.m. and didn’t put Pango on, and we got a NIS 100 ticket. Normally, I’d be annoyed, but after a meal this good, I didn’t even care. Highly recommended.
Amaya1 Kiryat Mada, RehovotHours: Sunday-Thursday, 6 p.m.-11:30 p.m.; Saturday night after ShabbatPhone: (077) 985-9373Kashrut: Rabbanut RehovotThe writer was a guest of the restaurant.