Asia: Eilat Finally Gets a Rooftop That Cooks

The wonton cone arrives standing upright, no bigger than a thumb, and the instruction that comes with it is short: one bite, nothing saved. Inside sits beef sirloin tartare, fermented shimeji mushrooms, and a pale streak of leek cream. It shatters, then floods. Behind you the Eilat mountains have gone the color of rust in the last of the light, and four floors below, traffic moves along Derech HaArava toward the old airport runway the city is turning into a park. A shaker starts up at the open air bar on the far side of the roof. Someone lowers themselves into the water at the edge of the lounge pool. This is Asia at seven in the evening, about an hour before the roof decides what kind of night it intends to be.

Chef Moshe Badishi came to this project after years in New York, where he worked at Nobu and at Daniel. That background explains the shape of the menu, which reads across Japan, China, Thailand and Vietnam without ever committing fully to one of them. The fish arrives fresh. The meat is built on select cuts only, and the kitchen leans on it hard.