Hi there!
‘Herzog’, is the second restaurant owned by Chef Roy Herzog, a 7-year apprentice of Celebrity Chef Eyal Shani. Opened about a year and a half ago, ‘Herzog’ is a welcome healthy vegan addition to the Tel-Aviv scene serving lunch, dinner and late-night meals every weekday (Sun-Thurs) between 11:30-23:00. I would like to thank Ilit Ben Dan for inviting me to write about it.
Chef Roy Herzog, is a vegan himself and believes in eating natural, non-processed foods that are well balanced in nutrients to provide true sustenance and a healthy alternative to meat. His main courses are therefore combination dishes of grains and beans that achieve the recommended intake of protein and since all main dishes are served with a vegetable soup they are both healthy and satisfying.
Now, it’s time to explain the pun in my title. In Hebrew, the word ‘Har’ means mountain and since ‘Herzog’ has the word ‘Har’ in his name (disregard the vowels since in Hebrew we use symbols instead of vowel letters), he decided to call each main dish after a different mountain in Israel and base it on a different color of the spectrum, which also ensures provision of nutrients.
I’m not vegan, but as a celiac, I eat gluten-free food and chef Roy Herzog thought that I would be able to find some options. In that he was correct. Most mountains are gluten-free, except for Tuesdays (a green dish symbolizing growth made of green wheat, grits, beans, kale and more). As Murphy’s law had proclaimed, I came on Tuesday, so instead of ordering the ‘Judean Mountain’ dish, I had a choice between a nice sounding sweet potato dish with a side of cauliflower tabouli, a large salad (my usual fallback) or what I ended up trying, the most hard-core vegan dish, the ‘Super-Raw Zoodles’.
For those who don’t know what they are, zoodles are noodles made of raw zucchini. His dish combines the zoodles with thinly sliced cucumbers, grated lettuce, mint, tahini from sesame seeds and tahini from black cumin also termed nigella sativa and a few other chef’s touches. I was sure that by the time I got back home, I’d be ready to eat lunch again, but surprisingly it kept me full till dinner AND it was very refreshing on a particularly hot Tel-Aviv day. That, together with my drink of course, which was an invigorating hibiscus lemonade (the one on the left, I nearly forgot to take a photo):
As you can see, I wasn’t alone. I treated my son to lunch who enjoyed a regular pasta dish. He had the real noodles😊.
We finished off with dessert. We each had a taste of a 100% organic cocoa fudge bar and a goji berry-coconut-mixed fruit bar (the two upper photos) although there were other desserts to choose from.
For your benefit, I wanted to mention that ‘Herzog’ is within a walking distance from the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Habimah Square and the Tel-Aviv performing arts center, each of which I haven’t written about yet. However, you can see below in my related posts some of the other locations in Tel-Aviv that I visited, that are only slightly further away.
So now, you know where to go when you want to eat healthy food when you’re away from home.
Best,
Talma
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You may also wish to read a similar post about eating with kids in L.A.
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