Amaia: A Granddaughter's Kitchen on Derech Beit Lechem

The sourdough arrives ahead of everything else, a thick wedge still warm from the oven, its crust dark and lacquered, its crumb threaded with the long ferment of Oshrat Basson Hadad's mother culture. Smoked pine nut cream sits in a shallow well beside it. A Jerusalem artichoke gremolata flecks the bread with green. A black smear of charcoal and a slow drip of fig leaf oil pool around the edge, with whipped butter and a small spoon of olive oil jam to round the plate. Above the entrance, a black and white photograph of Rashel and Raymond Hadad caught mid dance keeps watch over the room. They opened a Tunisian sandwich stand in this storefront on Derech Beit Lechem in 1990, fed Baka for over thirty years, and never imagined that one day their granddaughter would turn the same address into one of the most quietly ambitious kitchens in Jerusalem.

The room holds about ten seats on the entrance level, a handful more in a tiny upstairs gallery, and a few sidewalk tables when Jerusalem weather allows. Around thirty diners at full capacity. The walls are pale, the wood is honest, and the photographs of the grandparents anchor the space the way a memorial candle anchors a house on a Friday evening. Amaia opened in May 2025 with chef Oshrat in command of the kitchen, her mother Anat managing the floor, and her brother Omer behind a small bar at the front of the room. Two weeks later Rashel passed away in her nineties. The restaurant became a tribute by accident, then by design.