Hiba

A Chef's Shot at the Star

Hiba opened in spring 2022 in a forty-seat dining room on Derech Menachem Begin, beside the light-rail line at Sha'ul HaMelech. Chef Yossi Shitrit — already one of Israel's most recognisable television chefs, now a serious fine-dining operator — announced at the opening that he was cooking for Israel's first Michelin star. That ambition is the frame for everything the kitchen does. The tasting menu, priced at ₪650 and running twelve to fifteen courses, is an explicit statement: this restaurant belongs in the same room as Azurmendi, Quique Dacosta, Disfrutar.

The cuisine Shitrit calls Israeli-Arab fusion is rooted in the agricultural bounty of Israel's coastal plain and Galilean highlands, then woven into Middle Eastern technique — tanbur-spit lamb, charcoal-tempered vegetables, whey ferments, citrus jams, tahini emulsions that taste nothing like the tahini of any other restaurant. In winter 2026, the menu's earthier register — rich, layered, built for the cold — has drawn the most enthusiastic reviews of the restaurant's life. "Carefully layered" is the phrase that keeps recurring. Shitrit's precision and the kitchen's discipline are now on display at a level no other Tel Aviv restaurant is attempting.

In 2025 Shitrit took Best Chef in Milan, a career-defining international recognition that has changed the energy inside the dining room. The waiting list runs months. Walk-ups are not a category. The service is attentive to a degree that verges on the European — nothing missed, nothing rushed. Hiba is the most technically ambitious meal in the city, and the one most likely to join the Michelin Guide when the Guide finally arrives in Israel.

Best for Impress Clients

A client visiting Tel Aviv wants to understand the city at its highest register — not the falafel, not the beach, but the expression of what Israeli cooking becomes when a chef is operating at the edge of his technique. Hiba is that expression. The tasting-only format removes all ordering ambiguity. The room is serious without being stiff. The storytelling of Shitrit's menu — each course narrated briefly, each ingredient traced to its source — gives international guests the cultural context Tel Aviv's best cooking deserves. For a delegation dinner, a board member, or a prospect who eats at three-star restaurants in Paris and Tokyo, Hiba is the correct answer. It will be remembered.