Lifta, the art of food: Inside chef Eli Davis’s bold Jerusalem dining experience

The doors open to a cozy but well-designed entranceway that further opens to an unexpectedly spacious and beautiful restaurant. The decor is a modern interpretation of the classic Jerusalem design. The lighting, the table settings, and the spacing between tables are all perfect. Hang on, it gets even better.

Davis is a master of playful food presentation, starting with the cocktails. On our recent visit there, we chose a piña colada-style rum-based cocktail. This attractive drink is served in a fluted glass, topped with a whipped cream-like foam that appears very dairy-like but is actually dairy-free whipped coconut cream. It is aptly named “Home Run.” Yes! A great choice and a home run indeed.

The one-page menu opens with the renowned Davis Bread (NIS 42). The thick, crusty chunks looked more like kugel than bread. This is the way I imagine homemade farm bread: rustic, earthy, and fresh from the oven.

All the dishes at Lifta are made in-house with Davis’s original recipes and supervised by the chef himself. While the restaurant opens at 6 p.m., the kitchen has been hard at work from early morning. The dishes are complex yet precise, their presentation is artistic, and they are a delicious confluence of disparate culinary traditions and flavors.

Tongue is a classic Eastern European dish. We were charmed by the two breaded Tongue Croquettes (NIS 88) that the menu calls “bites,” served sushi-style on a wooden block. Here, the chef pairs Eastern European tongue with an Asian presentation and a tangy amba sauce from the Middle Eastern cuisine.

Don’t be surprised if you don’t recognize some of the dishes, and don’t be embarrassed to ask what they are. The colorful ChatziLifta (Lifta Eggplant, NIS 71), for example, looks like a box of crayons had its way in the kitchen. This complex dish is achieved by carefully striping eggplant, tahini, red harissa, lemon, and the black outer skin of the charcoal eggplant. The colorful ingredients are added by turn, giving the playful crayon effect. Take a big bite of this, and all the flavors come together in your mouth. It’s a wow.

You won’t find the chef’s dishes that draw on traditional Eastern European cuisine in Bubby’s kitchen. The menu says “kreplach,” but where is the soup? Lifta kreplach is an open pie-like delicacy with the soup inside the pie. Surprise!

At Lifta, the classic Kugel Yerushalmi has a healthy portion of meat baked in. This is where the original Jerusalem Kugel meets European yapchik, unexpected but oh so good, and certainly not to be found at any shul kiddush that I know.

Despite the whimsy, Lifta is a serious gourmet restaurant with an enormously skilled chef. In addition to the distinct combinations, Davis presents outstanding and delicious traditional no-surprise dishes. The Trout (NIS 187) was a most enjoyable skillfully prepared fillet served with a mixture of Swiss chard and celery. The Lamb Spareribs (NIS 220) are the stuff dreams are made of. Chef Eli’s lamb is topped with a sweet glaze that enhances the meat. My dining companion’s only disappointment was that after all the various “bites,” he could manage only a taste of the lamb!

After all this elegance, the duo from Lifta threw us a final curveball when they told us that Davis, the celebrated “chef to the stars,” runs a wildly popular everyman’s eat-in/take-out cholent eatery on Thursday nights in another location that draws more than 1,500 diners.

And finally, whether you have enjoyed the elegant Lifta or the cholent diner, your “Birkat Hamazon” will surely bless Davis “and his table, at which we have just eaten.”