The View: Netanya's Friday Table, Served Above the Sea

The sun is still a hand's width above the Mediterranean when the first plates reach the terrace, and a tin of napkins lands beside them. That tin tells you everything about the evening ahead. Focaccia comes off the grill blistered at the edges and heaped with a smoky eggplant zaalouk and glossy seasoned olives; a bowl of hummus follows under a bright green slick of hadas. Below the railing, the lawns and palms of Kikar HaAtzmaut run toward the cliff edge, and the promenade fills with families walking off their dinners. Inside, bottles glint along a long backlit bar, and a faint perfume of charcoal drifts out from the Josper oven. By the time the sky turns apricot, the table is crowded with small plates and everyone is eating with their hands. This is The View on Gad Machnes Street, at its best: loud, generous, and facing the water.

The View began life as a chef's steakhouse under Nati Arviv, a Netanya native who built its early reputation on long smoked cuts. The kitchen now belongs to Raphael Matok, a 25 year old chef who grew up a few streets from the promenade and came home from the Machneyuda group's kosher project in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market. He writes the menu with consulting chef Eliad Danon, one of the standout talents from the television competition Chef Games. Their brief is what Matok calls a Netanya mix: the Friday night salad table of a melting pot city, reworked as dishes to share with a drink, with smaller portions and louder seasoning.