Chef Sharon Cohen and the Montefiore Counter
There is a particular kind of restaurant that a city needs more than it knows: the one that has been there long enough to trust, that earned its reputation dish by dish rather than press release by press release, and that quietly became the benchmark against which newer arrivals are judged. In Tel Aviv, for Mediterranean seafood, that restaurant is Shila.
Sharon Cohen opened the original Shila two decades ago and built it into one of the city's most beloved institutions — a place where the regulars are so loyal and the tables so sought-after that its relocation to Montefiore Street 9 was treated less like a move and more like an event. The new address gave Cohen an opportunity to reimagine the physical experience. At its heart stands a central bar with an open crudo kitchen: guests can watch fish being broken down and dressed in real time, can ask questions, can lean across and inhale the brine of something just pulled from one of two in-house aquariums that maintain live shellfish at peak freshness until the moment of preparation.
Adjacent to the crudo counter is a wine room whose several hundred labels represent one of the more thoughtful cellar assemblies in Tel Aviv. The Israeli wine industry has matured considerably in recent years, with producers from the Galilee, Golan Heights, and Judean Hills producing bottles capable of serious comparison with French and Italian equivalents. Cohen's wine director has curated accordingly: the list rewards exploration, and the staff know it well enough to match whatever you are eating without resorting to the obvious choices.
The culinary approach is Catalan in sensibility — the a la plancha grill, the crudo tradition, the instinct for char balanced against freshness, the conviction that the best way to serve excellent fish is to interfere as little as possible — applied to Israeli and Mediterranean ingredients that are the equal of anything from the Iberian coastline. Shrimp carpaccio arrives dressed with smashed tomatoes, za'atar, and almonds: a dish that reads as essentially Israeli but is structured with Catalan discipline. The Calamari Nero is a Tel Aviv signature, lacquered and burnished to an intensity that renders it simultaneously very simple and very complex. Sea fish tartare, wrapped in thin avocado, manages elegance and generosity simultaneously. The fish fillet, grilled over high heat and presented with barely any intervention, exists to demonstrate the quality of what Cohen sources.
Shila Cafe, which operates adjacent to the restaurant on Montefiore, offers a lighter programme inspired by Italian salumerias — a lunchtime escape into cured things, antipasti, and the kind of casual eating that the Montefiore neighbourhood, with its mix of old Bauhaus buildings and shaded pavements, seems specifically designed for. The two venues share a sensibility without competing, which is Cohen's managerial gift as much as a culinary one.
Prices are honest for what is delivered. This is not a budget restaurant — it is a restaurant where the produce is expensive because quality demands it — but the value proposition is real. At $$, Shila sits comfortably below the rarefied heights of OCD TLV and Taizu while offering an experience that in some respects surpasses them in warmth and generosity of spirit. The World's 50 Best Discovery listing is deserved, recognising a restaurant that has been consistently excellent across two decades and two addresses without ever needing to reinvent itself for attention.
Best for First Date
The geometry of Shila suits early romance with unusual precision. The central crudo bar creates something to look at, to discuss, to lean towards — first-date body language that happens naturally rather than by design. The open kitchen is theatrical enough to provide conversation but not so loud that conversation becomes difficult. Cohen's food rewards sharing: order broadly, pass plates, inhabit the meal together. The wine room means there is always something interesting to discover jointly, and the staff possess the rare quality of making guests feel known without being intrusive.
The Montefiore neighbourhood is a first-date destination in its own right — walkable from Neve Tzedek, close to the Florentine district, bookended by the kind of bars and coffee places that allow a first meeting to extend naturally if it is going well. Shila sits at the anchor of all of this. It is the kind of first-date restaurant that makes a second date feel inevitable — not because of manufactured romance but because of genuine pleasure, well-executed and generously delivered.
Best for Solo Dining
The counter at Shila is among the best solo dining positions in Tel Aviv. The crudo kitchen is directly in front of you. There is something to watch at all times. The chef's team work with the quiet efficiency of people who are very good at what they do, and the counter format means the boundary between kitchen and guest is permeable — questions are welcomed, explanations offered, the occasional detour into Cohen's sourcing philosophy available to anyone who wants it. Eating alone at a great bar is one of the genuine pleasures of urban life, and Shila provides it at its highest expression. Order the full crudo progression — the kitchen will advise on the day's best catch — and allow the wine room to furnish something that has never appeared in your glass before.