Season 02: Chef Nomi Giat's Produce-Led Debut Inside the Artists' Stables

The kubaneh arrives still warm, its butter laminations flaking apart against a pool of smoked labneh that has darkened almost to the color of caramel at the edge of the bowl. Around you, a converted horse stable hums with a Thursday evening crowd: a couple in linen at the next table, a group of artists from the gallery two doors down, a dog asleep beneath a wicker chair. Somewhere in the courtyard a guitar starts up. Chef Nomi Giat steps out of her open kitchen for a moment, leans against the pass and surveys the room before disappearing again behind a wall of plated dishes ready to leave the line. This is Season 02 on a weeknight in Pardes Hanna, and it does not feel like Pardes Hanna at all.

The Urvot HaAmanim complex, where Season 02 occupies one of the larger units, was built as horse stables for an agricultural school decades ago. It has since become one of the more interesting cultural pockets in the country, a hundred-odd businesses that include galleries, ramen counters, hummus shops, vintage clothing stores and a bar that books live music on weekends. Giat's restaurant is the most ambitious dining room in the complex, and arguably the most ambitious produce-led dairy kitchen between Tel Aviv and Haifa.