Aladino: A Judean Desert Meat Buffet at a Single Flat Price

The smell hits first, before you have even cleared the polished stone forecourt of the DCity mall. Charcoal, garlic, and the slightly sweet edge of a pepper steak finishing on an open flame. By 14:15 on a weekday afternoon, the queue at the host stand on Sderot HaMeyassedim 10 already curls past the laser cut Aladino sign, past a family of seven splitting two highchairs between three children, past a pair of reservists in dusty uniforms reading the buffet rules on a printed card. A grill cook in a charcoal stained apron lifts a tray of asado off the open flame and a server collects it before the platter has stopped smoking. This is Aladino at the start of lunch service. The same room at 21:00 will sound the same and smell the same, only with desert sunset projected onto the walls.

The Israeli meat buffet was a format of the late 1990s and early 2000s, then it largely vanished as restaurants moved toward small plates, chef tasting menus, and the rest of the Tel Aviv playbook. Aladino opened in 2026 to bring the idea back at scale, and the scale is the story. Three million NIS went into the build out. The dining hall seats around 300. A single ticket at 149 NIS per diner unlocks the entire buffet, all sides, all desserts, all soft drinks, unlimited refills, for the full eight hour service window. There is no per dish accounting, no upcharge for the cuts you want, no service of plates from a kitchen. The room is the meal.