Culinary tour of the Talpiot Market – an evolving culinary cultural encounter

A traditional confectionery headed by Yehuda Libel. The confectionery offers cookies, cakes, and pastries from the Austro-Hungarian cuisine. If you ask Yehuda where he was born, he will answer that he is Palestinian. Yehuda was born in Israel before the establishment of the state and draws his European flavors from his family and the legendary Kastler confectionery in the center of Carmel, where he began his career as a young confectioner.

At Libel Confectionery, you can find cakes that our grandmothers used to bake and that are very hard to find elsewhere, such as the Hungarian Rigianchi cake, which is a kind of tart with lots of layers of ganache—an amazing cake!

There are also Persburger cakes, kramesnits, cream puffs, burekas with cabbage, and more.

The bakery in the Talpiot Market was founded by Slava Matayev in 1998. There you can find pierogi filled with cabbage, meat, or potatoes. Every day, hundreds of pierogi are fried there, and there is always a large crowd, mainly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, buying homemade food.

The place also sells Caucasian dishes such as plov, chudo, and more.

When you come shopping on Friday at the Talpiot Market, you don't just come for fish, vegetables, and fruit, but also for fine cheeses from around the world.

The finest cheeses can be found at the cheese house and at Taher Cheese Ouda, where you can discover Gruyère, nut cheeses, cheeses with chili, Dutch cheeses, Swiss cheeses with and without truffles—a whole world full of possibilities.

We recommend coming to taste and decide what to buy to take home.

The Zayit Zaytun restaurant was opened two years ago by Louis Gawra after studying food engineering in Germany and cooking in restaurants abroad. He decided to come to the Talpiot Market, renovate the corner, which was in a rather neglected state, with his own hands, and combine the authenticity of Arab cuisine with the fresh abundance that the Talpiot Market offers every day.

The menu includes hearty dishes such as stuffed vegetables, falachia (labneh with tomatoes and more), hummus with spinach, and sambusak. But every day, Louis adds variety and surprises, so it's worth checking with him before ordering from the menu.

The restaurant is open all week and also on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., closed on Mondays.

The Thai restaurant is owned by Shai Erel, who recruited Wisitini Sangsuon and Guy Blau, mother and son, to help open the place. She is a veteran chef who cooks for the Thai embassy, and Guy, her son, who completed culinary studies and has a golden touch when it comes to Thai food (!), served in Unit 8200 and later as an IDF spokesperson, but in the meantime was a pastry chef at Zuni in Jerusalem, a cook at Tzemach, and a chef at Granit.

Guy and his mother prepare very authentic Thai food.

When you sit down and enjoy your Gang Kiew Wan (green curry) or Pad See Ew, or indeed any other dish, you will feel like you are in Thailand!

One of my favorite places in the market.

Please note that reservations cannot be made in advance, and the restaurant does not have a telephone number. The restaurant is closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and on other days of the week it is open from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.