Tallie Lieberman

Over the last 10 years, Israel has become the bucket-list destination for informed foodies. At turns derelict and utterly magnificent, Tel Aviv, the capital of contemporary Israeli cuisine – light, Mediterranean fare that draws inspiration from the Palestinian kitchen, hyperlocal, seasonal produce and the diverse culinary roots of individual chefs – is home to an electric restaurant scene that is enticing globetrotting epicures. While Israel’s star-studded chefs and restaurateurs – Eyal Shani, Meir Adoni and Assaf Granit, to name a few – deserve much of the credit for placing it on the culinary map, it is the country’s no-frills ethnic eateries, purveyors of traditional dishes from around the Jewish world, that offer an authentic, remarkable taste of Israeli life born in the Jewish communities of Europe, South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. These mostly family-run enterprises are sustained by ironclad recipes passed down through generations.

Tel Aviv weather is finally aligning with the calendar, and winter looks by enterprising local designers are having their moment in the now temperate Mediterranean sun. As the international runways sway under the weight of tartan textiles and bulky ‘80s visual references, winter collections emerging from the White City are being cut from a vibrant minimalism, a do-nothing elegance, a flirty but utilitarian, high-end playfulness. From knitwear to denim, jumpsuits to ankle-skimming dresses, these cool weather threads may have staunchly local roots but they bear a universal message: Own your look. Here are the Tel Aviv designers that should be on every style hunter’s radar this winter season.

The farm-to-table open air eatery provides a delectable respite from all the city noise Just a short hour’s drive on Routes 1 and 425 through the heart-stopping Judean Hills plants one as far as possible from the grit and agitation of a city in heat: balmy, verdant Rama’s Kitchen in the hilltop village of Nataf. Rama’s Kitchen is not a restaurant. Well, it is a restaurant, but it’s not only a restaurant. Rama’s Kitchen is a decades-old regional landmark that introduced the farm-to-table concept well before millennials got hip to it. After going up in smoke in a dramatic forest fire in 2016, the Kitchen reopened in April of this year under the direction of founder and owner Rama Ben-Zvi, her daughter Ella Ben-Zvi and new head chef Tal Bardugo, formerly of Mona and Satya. In its new incarnation, the countryside escape – a lofty, wooden gazebo fitted with a taboon, a victory garden and sublime views of the surrounding wildlife – is open for fixed-price meals on Thursday evening and Friday morning; the Kitchen is closed for private events the rest of the week. “Our idea was to create a local cuisine, a cuisine that speaks the language of strictly local ingredients,” explains Bardugo. “You won’t see pasta here for the most part, and you won’t taste French or Italian dishes here. Our menu changes weekly, because we are passionate about being seasonal. “If I can’t find apricots, I’ll use figs. Everything we serve is either grown in our own garden or purchased from neighboring

Milan-based curator Maria Cristina Didero fleshes out her distinct perspective — “design is about people, not chairs”— in “The Conversation Show,” opening May 28th Italian design curator Maria Cristina Didero, known affectionately in her circles as “MC,” is less interested in art than she is human behavior. In “The Conversation Show,” her second exhibit at Design Museum Holon, Didero, a strong proponent of the 1960s Italian Radical Design movement, which combined art, architecture and technology to drive utopian agendas, is “trying, through design, to find a common language that can unify everybody.” “Understanding each other, especially understanding those who think differently from you, making that extra effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, is the way to achieve harmony in the world,” Didero explained in an interview outside the five-installation exhibit, which opens to the public on May 28th.  “If everyone would be a bit more generous, a bit more understanding that we are all different, but we are all human, we could avoid disappointment – we could avoid wars – it would be good for everybody.” The Conversation Show Through an eclectic, impressive roster of designers and styles, Didero’s latest show investigates the conversations held between designers themselves. Each design studio was asked to answer the questions: How do you communicate? And how does this interaction yield art? “Not surprisingly, they all responded in a variety of languages,” Didero said. “T