Le Miel: A French Kitchen That Refuses to Stop Dancing

The first signal that Le Miel is not a normal restaurant arrives somewhere around the second course. A saxophone cuts in over the room. A dancer in a sequined costume threads between the tables. A waiter sets down a duck breast lacquered in coffee and Madagascar pepper, and somewhere behind you a fire performer raises a torch. It is past midnight on Yad Harutsim in Tel Aviv, the kitchen has been open for hours, and the room is still filling. Chef Boris Shpitalnik is plating from the pass with the calm of a man who once cooked at a Michelin starred kitchen in southern France and now cooks inside a carnival.

Le Miel began during wartime as a two month pop up. It was supposed to close. Instead it kept filling its tables and kept extending its run, and at some point the partners behind it stopped pretending it was temporary. The result is one of the strangest and most committed kosher dining rooms in Tel Aviv: a French chef restaurant grafted onto a late night cabaret, run by a kitchen that takes the cooking as seriously as it takes the show. Doors open at 21:00. The room clears around 03:30. Sundays and Mondays are dark. Friday is closed for Shabbat. Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday night, the venue runs the full program.