Culina: Where Concrete Meets the Coast

The first thing you register is the sound of flame. A josper grill crackles behind the long central bar, sending wisps of charcoal smoke drifting across a room of raw concrete and stainless steel. A cook plates a fish tartare with surgical calm. Two seats down, a couple leans forward over cocktail glasses, watching the kitchen like it is a stage. This is Culina on a weeknight in Caesarea, a restaurant that arrived in November 2025 and quietly started pulling diners away from the harbor and into a shopping center on Rothschild Boulevard. The proposition is simple: the precision and energy of a Tel Aviv chef restaurant, transplanted to a town better known for Roman ruins and golf courses.

Chef Ori Ankava built his reputation at Toto and Elena in Tel Aviv before heading north to open Culina with sous chef Ori Kraus, whose own resume includes Port Said and George and John. Ankava grew up in Haifa with Moroccan roots, and his cooking carries that inheritance without performing it. You taste it in the briouats: Moroccan pastry parcels filled not with the expected potato or meat but with lion's mane mushrooms, glazed in citrus, and served alongside a salsa of preserved lemon that snaps with acidity. The technique is precise, the flavors layered, and the nod to tradition unmistakable.