Amaia: Grandmother's Legacy, Reimagined Through Smoke and Ferment

The sourdough arrives on a clay plate, still warm, its crust blistered and dark from a long bake. A swipe through the smoked pine nut cream leaves a trail of pale gold, and the scent of fig leaf oil rises faintly, green and almost floral. Before you have finished the first piece, the Jerusalem artichoke gremolata has already complicated things: earthy, bright, just sharp enough to make you reach for more bread. This is the opening gesture at Amaia, and it tells you everything about what Chef Oshrat Basson Hadad intends to do here. Nothing is simple. Nothing is accidental. Every plate is a conversation between tradition and technique, set inside a room so small you can hear the kitchen breathing.

The menu at Amaia reads short, barely a dozen items, but the complexity within each dish is staggering. The ceviche of farida, a delicate sea bream, arrives in a pool of burnt celery vinaigrette, the fish sliced thin enough to be almost translucent. Za'atar dust clings to the edges, and a crown of crispy fried onions adds a textural counterpoint that lingers well after the last bite. There is a quiet confidence in this dish: the acidity is precise, the celery's bitterness deliberate, the onions calibrated for crunch without grease.