Salon Yevani: A Greek Party That Starts with Dinner

The bouzouki player hits the first note at nine o'clock and the room shifts. A woman at the next table stands, raises a napkin above her head, and begins to sway. Two waiters carry a tower of white plates to the center of the floor. Thirty seconds later, the first one shatters. Cheers erupt. Somewhere beneath the music and the laughter, you can still catch the scent of grilled sea bass and lemon drifting from the open kitchen. This is Salon Yevani on a Wednesday night in Jerusalem, and it is nothing like the quiet dairy restaurants you may have expected at the First Station.

Chef Guy Peretz opened the Jerusalem branch of his Greek Salon group in early 2025, the fourth location in a chain that began at the West Hotel in Tel Aviv just before the world shut down in 2020. Peretz, born in Dimona to a family of chefs and butchers tracing their roots to Casablanca, trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London, Ecole Lenotre in Paris, and the Barry Callebaut academy in Belgium before earning thirteen international culinary gold medals and captaining Israel's national chef delegation. He could have gone fine dining. Instead, he chose the taverna.