Milia

Restaurant · ₪₪₪ · Tzohar, dairy

17 Derech Beit Lehem, Baka, Jerusalem

A small kosher dairy chef restaurant of fish, vegetables and fermentation, opened by a granddaughter where her grandmother's Tunisian eatery stood on Derech Beit Lehem for 35 years

Milia is a small kosher chef restaurant, dairy and built around fish, vegetables and fermentation, at 17 Derech Beit Lehem in Baka. It opened in 2025 as Amaia and has since renamed itself Milia, as mako reported in July 2026; Haaretz told readers not to confuse it with an unrelated Amaia that opened in Rehovot that summer. For about 35 years the storefront was "אצל ראשל", the Tunisian home-cooking place of the chef's grandmother Rashel, which Haaretz calls Rachel's Sandwich, and the chef's mother and other relatives worked there with her. The chef, Oshrat (Oshi) Hadad-Basson, cooked at Meir Adoni's Catit, at Dalal, in the King David hotel and at the Mamilla hotel's rooftop restaurant, trained at Estella and did internships in France and Italy, by mako's account; Time Out adds Raphael. Haaretz described the restaurant as owned by Rashel's granddaughter, while the Jerusalem Post wrote that her mother, Anat Hadad, opened it with her; her brother Omer has worked beside them, as sous-chef at the opening according to mako and behind the bar according to the Jerusalem Post. Rashel died in her nineties around the time it opened, and a photograph of her and her husband hangs on the wall. The kitchen bakes its own sourdough, makes fresh pasta and its own cheeses, and works with fermentation, ageing and preserving; the menu, divided into bread, sea and earth, changes with the seasons. Dishes the press has named include bread with smoked pine-nut cream and Jerusalem artichoke gremolata, smoked trout belly, a fish terrine with citrus bavarois, a seafood sausage with bouillabaisse, black spinach ravioli and red tuna smoked over pine needles and olive wood. The room is small, with about ten seats on the entrance level and a few more in an upstairs gallery, and the Jerusalem Post wrote that people call from abroad to book a table a month ahead. At the opening it served lunch as well as dinner, with the grandmother's couscous on Fridays; in July 2026 mako gave its hours as Monday to Thursday evenings. In December 2025 the Jerusalem Post reported that the chef teaches sourdough workshops on Sundays, when the restaurant is closed. Its kashrut is under Tzohar's supervision. mako put it among Israel's 50 best kosher restaurants in July 2026 and called it one of the most special and intriguing openings Jerusalem has known; Time Out listed it fourth of 31 places to eat well in Jerusalem in January 2026; and the Jerusalem Post's critic, a guest of the restaurant, wrote that she had no doubt it would earn a Michelin star if the guide came to Israel.