Super HaMizrah: Behind the Shelves, a Kitchen That Speaks Fluent Fire

The shelves are real. Bottles of soy sauce and bags of jasmine rice crowd the narrow entrance, and for a moment you wonder whether you missed the turn. Then a host materializes from behind a curtain of beaded strands, checks a screen embedded in what looks like a cash register, and nudges you through a door that should not exist. The fluorescent hum of the grocery store vanishes. In its place: low amber light, the snap of charcoal catching fat, and the unmistakable perfume of shiso and smoked dashi curling through a room carved from Jerusalem limestone. This is Super HaMizrah on a weeknight, and the illusion works every single time.

The concept belongs to the Jacko's Street group, the same team that built a loyal following with Kurdish charcoal cooking near Machane Yehuda. In late 2023, they took over a ground floor space on Derech Beit Lechem in Baka, gutted half of it, and preserved the other half: thick stone walls from a century old Arab house now frame a dining room where bass lines vibrate gently against the masonry. The grocery store entrance is not a gimmick bolted on for social media; it is a functional bodega that sells imported Asian goods during the day. The restaurant simply lives behind it, which is precisely the point.