We had enjoyed lunch at Shifra & Jamil restaurant some months ago, so when a dinner invitation arrived, we didn’t say no.
After the long hiatus where many restaurants closed and many shortened their opening hours, most restaurants are back to business.
Like so many, Shifra & Jamil was closing up at 5 p.m. Then one day at 6 p.m. there was a tap on the door, and a customer asked to come in. At 7 p.m. there was another tap.
“I supposed the time has come to reopen in the evening,” said owner Liroi.
If you love the classic Hatikvah steakiya, but you like it clean and upmarket, Shifra & Jamil is for you.
Start with a table full of salads, the likes of which you have never tasted. Salads are fresh, made from scratch three times a day. The restaurant has a dedicated chef just for salads. Yes, it costs more, said Liroi, but fresh salads are best. Indeed, this tabouleh is not like any tabouleh that I know. The parsley in every salad is bright green and not wilted. The sweet potato is crunchy. There are two or three kinds of eggplant, egg salad, shredded carrot salad – fifteen salads in all. The lafa, straight from the tabun oven, is perfect. Refills? As many and as often as you like.
The "Swords of Iron" meat skewers
We have gathered here this evening not for the salads but for the shipudim (skewered meats). The meat is what has put Shifra & Jamil on the map. The menu offers standard shipudim (NIS 40 each) and premium shipudim (NIS 55-79 each). Choose your favorite and mix and match. We chose both standard and premium shipudim for a mix of entrecôte, lamb, goose breast, chicken liver, chicken breast (pargit), and more. Add a few roasted tomatoes for color, and with them a big bowl of french fries.
Consistency is the operative word at Shifra & Jamil. The one-page dinner menu (in Hebrew, English, and French) offers a good selection of starters, meats, and side dishes. The menu never changes, so what you enjoyed at your first visit to the restaurant will be available at every other visit. Knowing that the recipes had not changed, I could wholeheartedly recommend dishes that we had enjoyed in our previous visit to our companions, who were new to this restaurant.
A short time after choosing our favorites, our waitress delivered a large platter of long, ferocious-looking swordlike skewers, each bearing huge chunks of grilled meats. “Swords of iron!” we declared. In a lesser restaurant the chunks of meat are bite-size. The skewered meats at Shifra & Jamil are supersized, grilled well on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside. A good deal of swapping went on at our table, with chunks of the various meats shared among us.
All the foods at this restaurant are products of Israel, said Liroi proudly. Red meats are fresh, never frozen, and sourced from the Golan Heights (glatt Machpud). Vegetables are all grown in Israel (mehadrin). No Turkish tomatoes for us.
When my companion and I go out to dinner alone, we often skip dessert. But dining with friends was so pleasant we decided to stretch our visit with a cuppa tea and a dessert. And I am so glad we did. We chose two desserts for the four of us (NIS 45 each). The superrich chocolate cake with more chocolate drizzled over it, is for chocoholics. The star of the dessert menu is Shifra’s baklava. And the lady knows her desserts. This is a beautiful platter with four elegant pieces of baklava and a delicious custard cake in the center. The presentation on stylized decorative plates served with small glasses of tea was the perfect ending to a perfect dinner.
There is underground pay parking in the business center and street parking for those with patience to wait for a space.
The author and friends were guests of the restaurant.
The author is the founder and CEO of eLuna.com, the premier English-language website for kosher restaurants in Israel.
- Shifra & Jamil Restaurant
- 1 Arik Einstein Street
- Herzliya Hills
- Tel: 079-611-1999
- Kashrut: Glatt mehadrin
- Open: Sunday-Thursday, 12 noon-12 midnight; Saturday, after Shabbat till 11:30 p.m. Closed Friday and Shabbat.