Open Sunday - Thursday: Lunch hours 12:00 pm till 5:00. Dinner hours 5:00pm till 11:30pm. Closed Friday for private parties. Open after Shabbat. Closed Shabbat.

May 2010
Gabriel is a gourmet dining experience. The restaurant has matured over the 5 years since it opened. There is now a new chef and a new menu. If you haven't been to the restaurant in the past year now is the time to enjoy it again.

Gabriel is situated in a beautifully renovated historic Jerusalem building at the top of the Shimon Ben Shetach pedestrian walkway. If you are taking a cab ask for Kikar Hachatulot "Cat's Square." The restaurant is right there.

There are three seating areas: a pleasant outdoor space, indoors where there is a full bar and on the upper floor that can easily host private parties. The building has been completely renovated in classic Jerusalem stone. The stone is tempered by the lovely soft furnishings that create a warm, understated decor.


The Dining Experience
Gabriel is a fine dining gourmet experience. The restaurant is lovely, the atmosphere delightful, the service is excellent and the food is delicious. The restaurant now has a gourmet chef. Jacques has added many new ideas to the menu and has brought the food up several notches. Now Gabriel is a true chef restaurant.

A visit to Gabriel is a way to spend your evening. It is not what you do before going to the movies Each dish is prepared when ordered – nothing is kept in the kitchen to be reheated when an order comes in. For this reason, a meal at Gabriel might take longer than at other restaurants, but that is part of the concept. The meal is to be savored over a bottle of wine (or several bottles). The relaxed atmosphere is enhanced by the friendly staff, the beautiful wood floors, the Jerusalem stone walls, and the fine table linen.

While we considered the menu we were served piping hot rolls with spreads and dips. I chose to open with a variation on a classic Israeli dish that the chef had concocted: a whole grilled eggplant with tehina, but covered with a mix of red pepper and chunks of veal. While I always like the grilled eggplant and tehina dish, the vegetable topping with the chewy veal chunks made this a truly special dish with a wonderful flavor. My companion enjoyed the elegantly presented dish of individual large raviolis (actually more like kreplach or pirogen in appearance) filled with a cream of eggplant and tofu, covered with a sauce of dried tomatoes and pesto, and decorated with a tomato coulis. My dish was set off nicely with a large glass of the house Cabernet Sauvignon, while my companion chose the Evian water.

For the main course, I had the filet mignon. This was a rare treat, as many restaurants do not serve this cut. This was truly one of the best steaks that I have ever had. The portion consisted of three medallions of steak served on a sizzling hot sheet of slate, accompanied by a bed of mashed potatoes covered with asparagus spears and stir-fried peas in the pod. This came with a small pitcher of red wine sauce to use as I liked. (Chimchuri was an alternative to the red wine sauce.)

The presentation of the dishes at Gabriel is especially artistic. Each dish is served in a different type of plate. This emphasizes the different dishes and the variety. My main course was served on a slate sheet decorated with stripes of tehina and tomato coulis. The steak was garnished with crispy onion strings. The waiter advised me on how to order the steak and I got a perfectly juicy steak that was pink on the inside and grilled dark on the outside. There was remarkably little fat on the steak – it was all edible and delicious.

My companion had the bouri (grey mullet) filet, two fish filets baked and grilled accompanied by mashed sweet potatoes presented in a block shape. The fish was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, and quite tasty. In contrast to the meat dish on the slate sheet, the fish was served on a large white plate. It is very pleasing to have different styles of dishes at the same table .

Prices of main courses range. The high end is for 500g of chateaubriand. A complete dinner for two will come to at least nis 300. Expensive, but worth every shekel.


June 05. Fredi Engelberg [fredie@netvision.net.il]
As a dedicated Jerusalem street walker, I happened on Gabriel Restaurant on the first day that they opened! I wished Dedi and Zohar good luck. We drank a lechaim and tasted their business lunch. Three weeks later, I am back to report that I have now tasted a good part of the menu together with my companions, one of whom is a renowned restaurateur, one a recent graduate of a chef's course, myself, and two other foodies.

The food at Gabriel is outstanding both in taste and presentation. The meal opens with the freshly baked bread serve with amazing spreads including an eggplant spread that we couldn't get enough of.

I was won over immediately by the presentation of the antipasti. There is an artist in the kitchen with a good eye for shape, color and design. I will leave this description , so that you too, can go "wow"!

We enjoyed the veal carpacchio appetizer, which is paper thin slices of veal marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and garnished with tomato seeds and coarse salt. We also tasted a hot mushroom salad, zucchini soup, house pate and goose liver in a date sauce with raisins and pistachio nuts. Everything was a delight for the eyes and the taste buds.

For our main courses, we had the Denis, which was the fish of the day,Tornado ossini, Beef Wellington and Chicken Cordon bleu. The latter is a slice of chicken breast stuffed with breast of goose and deep-fried in a packo crumb batter. For those in the know, Packo crumbs are Japanese breadcrumbs and make an extremely crispy coating. The Beef Wellington was very impressive and a delight to eat. All the dishes were served with sauces - as in French cuisine - that were all unique and complemented the dishes nicely. The red wine sauce with cinnamon was a favorite as well as the mushroom and port sauce. The main courses were so pleasing, that the pureed potatoes that accompanied the meal were unnecessary for all but carb addicts. On second thought, they were great for sopping up every last drop of sauce!.

As in any fine restaurant, there were nice touches like sorbet to clear the palate between courses. The dessert menu is rather limited but reflects thought and quality. Eschewing artificial creams or margarine, the desserts include sorbets, real fruit pies, crepe Suzette, and of course chocolate cakes which do not need any milk products for enhancement.

We indulged ourselves with a bottle of Carmel Zarit dry wine. This is a new series of wines from Carmel of estate wines,i.e., from one vineyard. In this case, it is Zarit, a moshav on the Lebanese border, where many of our sons patrolled. Just adds a little more meaning when you know exactly where this wine is coming from.

Good service will make a bad meal reasonable, but bad service can ruin the best of meals. The service at Gabriel was efficient and friendly but kept the right distance. We are always amazed at how one chef and staff can get five main courses out at the same time and all are hot!

The choice of fine kosher restaurants in Jerusalem is expanding so rapidly. Gabriel certainly adds serious competition to the existing choices. Definitely worth a special trip up to Jerusalem!


From Our Readers:
Submitted by: briang. Date: February 2006. Description:This restaurant’s bid to be viewed as the best restaurant in Jerusalem got a lot stronger after our visit there this week. We’ve eaten in 1868, Canela, La Regence, La Guta etc etc and feel that we are in a position to really compare and judge.

Our welcome to Gabriel was both efficient and warm and our waitress immediately decided and responded to those who wanted to speak Ivrit and those who were more comfortable in English. Left alone for a few minutes to chat and consider the menu, before being bombarded with the specials was another thoughtful touch. I was particularly impressed with the knowledge of our waitress when it came to the choice of wines and again, she thoughtfully sought my views on whether to decant or not. In [another restaurant], our wine was ruined by the specialist sommelier who was totally ignorant about Israeli wines and more particularly how to handle them. We chose the Yatir Forest which was 280 NIS a bottle. The decanted it beautifully and served it sensitively, again judging who were the shikerers and who were not.

We had a range of starters between the five of us including salads, raviolis and chicken bits. We were surprised to see such generous proportions on beautifully presented plates. The food was all fresh, tasty and well seasoned. One of the dressings for a salad was pretty harif and a warning would have been welcome. The ravioli starter stuffed with sweet potato was particularly innovative and came in a warm floaty sauce. The sauce was so appealing, that in the absence of spoons on the table, we opted for another bread roll to sup it up!

When the main courses arrived, some of us wished we had had less of the starters. Again, the portions were actually appropriately described as massive. The only exception was the ravioli as a main course which came with inadequate amounts of the listed salmon and was quite disappointing. The mallard was nothing short of spectacular being both succulent but well cooked and in a great semi-sweet sauce. The beef dish (spelt Beff on the menu) was eaten by probably the fussiest pickiest eater I know and he raved about it. The chicken dish had to be halved and eaten via a doggy bag the next day. It was equally succulent and piquant the next day which is quite a tribute to the cooking. We didn’t have the grey mullet but seeing it pass by, it would have been a great choice too.
Nobody wanted a dessert but it seemed a shame to stop in mid stream so I can say the sorbet and the passion fruit parfait were winners.
Not cheap, but if you want great food, great service, a lovely ambience, Gabriel gets my vote as the best meal in town.

Submitted by: donbrand. Date: October 2005. Description: My wife and I have just come home after trying the business lunch at Gabriel and I simply felt the need to write about it. Out of the broad range of choices (including numerous fish as well as meat and chicken dishes) for appetizers my wife chose chicken livers in a plum sauce while I tried the the roast beef. For the mains we ordered the medallions of beef in a white vermouth and mushroom sauce and the entrecote. Suffice it to say that in both of our opinions the taste of the Gabriel business lunches was clearly superior to that of any other restaurant outing we have had in Jerusalem. But more than this, the entire dining experience, including the service, the neatness, the seating comfort and the ambience, was simply gemutlich; it was just so pleasant. We cannot recommend Gabriel more highly.