Entrecote: A Steakhouse Built on Two Stringencies and a Josper Oven

The sound hits you before the smell does. A heavy thud as a cleaver lands on a cutting board somewhere behind the open pass, then a low roar as the Josper oven door swings open and a wall of charcoal heat rolls into the dining room. By the time your eyes adjust to the black ceiling and white beams, a server is already setting down a basket of warm laffa, a small bowl of Caesar dressing, and a wine list that runs to several Israeli and Italian vineyards. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, the Jerusalem hills sit honey colored in the late afternoon light, and the office workers from the Har Hotzvim tech park have started filing in for early dinners. This is Entrecote on a Tuesday at six o clock, and the room is already nearly full.

Owner Shimon Assaraf built the Entrecote business out of his own butchery operation, and that vertical integration is the first thing you taste. The Well Done butchery shops, also under his ownership, supply the kitchen with selected local beef that the restaurant ages on premise for several weeks at a controlled temperature. By the time a 350 gram entrecote leaves the Josper, it has the deep iron note that only proper dry aging produces, and the seasoning, a proprietary spice blend developed by Assaraf himself, sits on top of the meat rather than competing with it. Order it medium rare with the chimichurri and confit garlic, and you will see what the kitchen has been building toward.