Cafe Xoho: A San Francisco Daydream on Ben Yehuda

The bagel arrives still warm, its crust crackling faintly as the knife cuts through, the inside soft and yeasty and faintly sweet from a long overnight rise. A tangle of beet cured salmon glows magenta against a smear of cream cheese, a tumble of capers and red onion, fronds of dill that release their grassy oil the moment they meet the heat. Beyond the counter the chalkboard menu rises in a bright clamor of colors, hand drawn arrows and exclamation points, the kind of board that looks like it was redrawn yesterday and probably was. A house cat dozes on a chair near the door. Outside, Ben Yehuda traffic shuffles past, a stroller, a dog walker, the morning runner cutting back from Hilton Beach. Cafe Xoho on a Tuesday morning is a soft place to land.

The kitchen at Cafe Xoho was built by Xoli Ormut-Durbin, an Israeli native who grew up in Hong Kong with Canadian parents and brought the dispersion of all those influences with her when she opened the original cafe on Frishman in 2010. Howie, her partner at the launch, gave the place its second syllable and the shorthand for its early identity. After fourteen years operating without kosher certification, Cafe Xoho relocated to Ben Yehuda 73 in 2022 and obtained Rabanut Tel Aviv supervision in February 2024. The kitchen retained its character through both transitions: small, vegetable forward, almost stubbornly handmade.