Minato Herzliya: A Fourth Generation Blade in the Tech Corridor

The salmon tataki arrives on a white plate, five slices fanned in a crescent, each piece barely kissed by the pan so that only the thinnest outer layer turns opaque while the center stays cool, coral, and yielding. A drizzle of ponzu collects in the curve of the plate, and a scatter of microgreens adds a peppery brightness that lifts the clean fat of the fish. Behind the counter, three sets of hands work in near silence: one pressing rice, one slicing tuna against the grain at a precise forty five degree angle, one torching the surface of an aburi nigiri until the fat beneath blisters and begins to render. The whole kitchen operates like a single organism, each motion calibrated to the one before it. This is Minato Herzliya on a Thursday at noon, and the quiet confidence of the room tells you everything the menu cannot.

Minato means "port" in Japanese, and the name carries weight. Chef Aki Tamura is a fourth generation sushi craftsman whose family operated a restaurant in the Minato ward of Tokyo for over ninety years. He arrived in Israel more than three decades ago, bringing techniques his parents drilled into him from the age of twelve: how to judge a fish by the clarity of its eyes, how to season rice so the vinegar lifts without overpowering, how to cut at an angle that maximizes surface area against the tongue. Cofounders Matan Rosenthal and Kobi Ninio built the business around Tamura's expertise, opening the original Caesarea flagship in 2004 and this Herzliya Pituach branch seven years later. Rosenthal, trained in both Japanese and French technique, works alongside Tamura to shape a menu that reaches well beyond the sushi counter.