8 Israeli Restaurants And Bars Among World’s Culinary ’50 Best Discovery’ List

50 Best, the brand behind The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and The World’s 50 Best Bars rankings, announced the launch of 50 Best Discovery and eight Israeli restaurants and bars are on the list.

50 Best Discovery is a new database that gives international diners the chance to “discover” new culinary destinations that have received votes from 50 Best experts around the world. With 1,600 reviews of locations from 75 countries, 50 Best Discovery “operates as an extension of the annual 50 Best rankings of restaurants and bars,” the brand says of its selection criteria. The venues featured in the collection have all received votes from the experts who create the rankings of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and The World’s 50 Best Bars, as well as Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, Asia’s 50 Best Bars and Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.

50 Best has been compiling culinary rankings based on the votes of an exclusive global network of experts for the past 17 years.

While the collection is compiled from the results of these five lists, it “extends far beyond the elite establishments celebrated in each list” and has a more “diverse range of expert-recommended” locations around the world.

No restaurants or bars from Israel made those five lists, but four restaurants and three bars from Tel Aviv and one Jerusalem restaurant made the 50 Best Discovery collection.

The four Tel Aviv restaurants are HaBasta, a “small but perfectly formed” eatery with market-to-table small plates in the Nachlat Binyamin neighborhood near the Carmel Market; M25, a small dining room and butchery counter that serves charcoal-grilled prime cuts and other meat; Milgo & Milbar, a fish restaurant in a Bauhaus-style residence on Rothschild Boulevard; and Pastel, a restaurant located in the Herta and Paul Amir Building of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and serving modern Israeli cuisine.

The three Tel Aviv bars are Imperial Craft Cocktail Bar, a famed cocktail lounge at in the Imperial hotel known for its talented bartenders; Bell Boy, a fun hotel bar offering classic cocktails and oysters; and Butler, dubbed the “Russian doll of speakeasies,” housed in Hotel B Berdichevsky.

Jerusalem is represented on the 50 Best Discovery list by one restaurant that has earned quite a reputation along with the Machane Yehuda market. The restaurant Machneyuda, founded by celebrity chef Assaf Granit, Yossy Elad and Uri Navon in 2009, serves Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine made with ingredients picked from nearby Mahane Yehuda Market.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy that chooses these restaurants and bars comprises more than 1,000 international restaurant industry experts, with a 50/50 gender split. The Academy is made up of food writers and critics, chefs, restaurateurs and well-travelled foodies across the globe. The World’s 50 Best Bars Academy also comprises more than 500 international drinks experts, including bar owners and bartenders, drinks writers and cocktail aficionados.

To qualify for 50 Best Discovery, 50 Best says a restaurant or bar needs to receive a significant number of votes in the most recent round of polling for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants or The World’s 50 Best Bars or feature on one of their annual regional rankings.