Amaya: The Quiet Revolution Rising from Rehovot's Science Park

The rosette bread arrives with a whisper of brown butter and a trail of smoke from charred eggplant. It pulls apart in soft, layered sheets, each one slick with labne and squash cream, and before you have time to register what just happened, the basket is empty. Around you, warm stone walls glow under lights that mimic a low moon, and a DJ somewhere behind the bar eases into a set that feels more like a pulse than a playlist. This is Amaya on a Wednesday evening, and already, the room is full.

Chef Dudu Ben Abo opened this restaurant with his partners Matan and Shalom Ben Arush in the unlikely setting of Rehovot's Kiryat HaMada, the science and technology park wedged between Rehovot and Nes Ziona. The location raises eyebrows. A fine dining dairy restaurant next to a parking lot named after Golda Meir, across from tech offices and a gas station? But Ben Abo has never followed the obvious path. Born in Tiberias to a Moroccan family, trained under Meir Adoni at Lumina in the Carlton Hotel, and seasoned through years running Rashel and collaborating on the Sens project, he chose Rehovot precisely because nobody expected it.