3 Best Restaurants in North Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv

This small corner café, a neighborhood favorite, is where you can catch a glimpse of the beauty of European café culture. Coffee is the main event, over which you can linger for hours along with your newspaper, computer, or friends from the neighborhood. Because it's in the heart of the upscale Basel area, patrons include celebrities that live nearby. The menu includes sandwiches and salads, pastas, and schnitzel.

The specialty at this hole-in-the-wall eatery is sabich, a meal-in-a-pita popular in the region. It's considered a breakfast food (the word comes from the Arabic for "morning") because it includes a hard-boiled egg, in addition to hummus, eggplant, potatoes, salads, and spices. It's a filling snack at any time of day, however. Another popular menu item is the platter of meatballs served in a light tomato sauce. The indoor dining area consists of three or four stools at a counter, and there are a few tables outside as well.

Diners crowd the tables inside and out at this simple seafood place. They are here for the fish, which locals agree is reasonably priced, well prepared, and always fresh. They've been coming here consistently for more than 20 years, despite the fact that the trendy Tel Aviv Port, with several fish places of its own, is a few steps away. For the main course, there's a catch of the day, which may include whole trout, fried calamari, or oysters in cream sauce. All the entrées come with an assortment of salads.