Fresh The Market: Serving fresh, flavorful food for six years - restaurant review

You know that feeling when you discover a great restaurant and then think: “Wait... this has been here the whole time?” That was us at Fresh The Market in Kfar Saba’s G City Mall, a restaurant that’s been quietly serving fresh, flavorful food for six years while we’ve been walking right past it on our way to buy socks, electronics, and who knows what else.

We were meeting another couple for lunch – the kind of outing that starts with “Let’s go somewhere easy” and ends with “Why don’t we do this more often?” Our priorities were simple: convenience and cost. Nothing fancy, just good food without having to take out a second mortgage. Fresh The Market checked both boxes – and added a few pleasant surprises along the way.

Check the first box for convenience. The restaurant is located at the entrance to G City Mall when you point to it in Waze. You can’t miss it. There are plenty of spaces, right by the door in the large parking lot.

Add a second check mark for cost. The fixed-price business lunch comes in at just over NIS 100 per person. That’s a deal. For that price, you get a fish main course, a salad, and a beverage – a nice, healthful lunch. As the name of the restaurant promises, the fish really is fresh from the sea, delivered every day.

Rather than the standard paper menu, each table gets an electronic pad – sleek, multilingual, and complete with “Grace After Meals.” So you can browse the menu, place your order, and bless your Maker, all from one sleek device. The pad shows a photo of each dish and the number of “likes” it received from customers. You can choose one of the trendy dishes or go rogue and be adventuresome.

We started things off with an order of garlic bread topped with Parmesan cheese (NIS 48). The puffy loaf was divided into nine golden-brown “buns,” baked in the tabun oven. It came with a salsa dipping sauce that gave just the right kick. Among the four of us, it disappeared faster than we’d like to admit.

For our mains, my companion and I shared two dishes: one fish and one pasta. The Lavrak (sea bass) and Rossoto fish dish (NIS 109 in the business lunch) featured two generous fillets on a bed of mushroom risotto that was rich, creamy, and completely satisfying. The salad on the side was heavy on lettuce, while the endives gave it a college education.

Though not one of the more popular pasta dishes, the Posili Parmesan pasta (NIS 74) was a show stopper. Squiggly pasta in a four-cheese sauce (goat’s cheese, mozzarella, tomme, and parmesan), topped with chopped pistachios. It was indulgent over-the-top comfort food, but you only live once.

On that theory, we indulged in an ice cream-based shake for dessert (NIS 32). Don’t miss this, a special treat in a good dairy restaurant.

When we arrived at 2 p.m., the place was buzzing with office workers on lunch break, moms with strollers, ladies who lunch, and pensioners discovering their new midday freedom. The atmosphere was lively, with just the right noise level to feel social without having to shout.

Seating options range from inside the mall to the main dining area, and the clearly preferred covered porch with large picture windows, shaded from the sun.

If you’re looking for a spot to share a tasty, healthful meal with friends, convenient, and cost-effective, with value, and genuinely good food, head to Fresh The Market.