Aresto: Where Rome Meets the Ruins of Herod's Harbor

The stone tabun oven glows amber through the open kitchen pass, radiating warmth that mingles with the salt air drifting in from the Mediterranean. Outside, a Roman aqueduct fragment catches the last light of the afternoon. Inside, a waiter sets down a board of focaccia so fragrant that the couple at the next table pauses mid conversation. This is Aresto on a Friday morning in Caesarea, and the ancient harbor has rarely felt more alive.

Chef Chali Ben Naim, a Bishulim academy graduate, runs this dairy Italian kitchen with quiet conviction. She took over a space that owner Adi Amrani carved into the port's stone arcade years ago, when the idea of a serious kosher restaurant inside a national park struck most people as impractical. The skeptics were wrong. Aresto has become one of the few kosher destinations along Israel's northern coast that earns a visit on its own terms, not merely as a convenient stop between archaeological sites. The restaurant has weathered years of operation in a location that demands both culinary substance and logistical resilience, and it continues to draw regulars from Haifa, Netanya, and beyond.