Michali's: The Modiin Bakery That Grew Into a Brasserie

At nine in the morning on a Thursday, the front counter at Michali's smells like a Paris arrondissement. Two staff members are pulling baguettes from a deck oven on the back wall, the crust hissing as it cools on wire racks, and a row of glass jars on the shelf above holds dark cocoa biscuits and shards of chocolate honeycomb. A woman in workout clothes points to a pain au chocolat and asks the counter for an Americano to go; behind her, a family of five is already at table fourteen with a giant Israeli breakfast platter, the eggs in a blue ceramic pan and a forest of small dishes around it. This is what Michali's does best: it is a working bakery first, and a sit down brasserie second, and the air between the two functions has the kind of friendly chaos that you only get when a kitchen genuinely feeds its neighborhood.

The pastry program is the spine of the operation. Bread baking happens in house every morning, with French baguettes, country loaves, ciabatta, and a rotating selection of viennoiserie out by opening. The pain au chocolat has the slight crackle of a fresh lamination, the chocolate batons still glossy through the cut. The almond croissant carries a thick line of frangipane down the center, dusted with confectioners sugar and slivered almonds that toast in the oven on the way out. Take three of these home and you have a respectable Modiin Friday breakfast for the family.