Tel Aviv top of the menu for vegetarians and vegans

Israel is a happy place for those of carnivorous culinary habits, savouring their smoky al ha’esh (barbecued) meat meals at home, or in hotels or restaurants. But many Israelis have switched to a vegetarian and/or vegan lifestyle. In fact, Tel Aviv, which has a young, trendy and liberal population, has transformed itself into the vegan capital of the Western world.

With 400-plus vegan-friendly restaurants and new ones opening every week in Tel Aviv, international media such as CNN and Condé Nast Traveler have already proclaimed the city a “herbivore smorgasbord” with “the world’s best vegetarian food”.

According to the Vegan Friendly website, Israel has more than 300,000 vegans, the highest per capita vegan population anywhere in the world.

This new culinary trend has also encouraged local restaurants and hotels to add vegan dishes to their menus. Obviously the milk and meat rules of kashrut are also an incentive.

“It’s not so much a culinary trend as it is a health trend. It’s very easy to create a vegan menu,” says one of Tel Aviv’s top chefs. “Jewish people are very creative. Any hotel or restaurant kitchen boasts hundreds of ingredients to choose from. You just need to know what to do with them.”

Rafi Baeri, vice president of sales and marketing for the Dan Hotel chain, says: “Israelis in general partake in some form of Mediterranean diet, which features lots of fruits and vegetables. And as you know, foreign tourists always praise the lavish Israeli hotel breakfast buffets, which are very colourful and feature everything a regular vegetarian or vegan could want, from freshly squeezed orange juice to salads and hot dishes, depending on their vegetarian diets.”

The city’s Nanuchka restaurant is believed to be the first to transform Georgian meat cuisine into a vegan-friendly menu.

Tel Aviv also has a vegan ice cream outlet, called Gela, as well as Israel’s first vegan supermarket, Hagal Hayarok (The Green Wave), which recently opened in the Carmel outdoor market.

“No one stays hungry in Tel Aviv, whether you are a vegan or not. A vegan restaurant chef just needs to be creative,” says Charlie Fadida, former chef at the Sheraton Tel Aviv, who now hosts a popular cooking show on a local TV channel and is head of culinary for ISS Israel Catering.

“The vegan trend was like a culinary infection that was being passed from one person to the other,” he says. “We all know that a person does not need to eat meat every single day and we have all eaten way too much junk food.

“One of the most popular vegan-friendly foods these days happens to be jahnun (a Yemenite delicacy made of pastry and pronounced jach-noon) — which on the surface does not appear to be healthy, because it is a bit fatty, with high cholesterol. But the Yemenites were smart. They always ate their jahnun with freshly cut tomatoes and green hilbeh (pronounced chil-beh), a greenish, spicy condiment/dip made from fennel that neutralises or breaks up the fat content.”

Tel Aviv’s vegan trend has also inspired websites (many of them in English) such as vegansontop.co.il — this lists current and new vegan hotspots. 