Pinukei HaOchel shel Carmel

Restaurant · ₪₪ · No kosher certificate

5 HaYahalom Street, Netanya market, Netanya

A small family restaurant in an alley of the Netanya market, where Momi Naftali serves the Tripolitan stews his parents, Carmel and Aliza, began cooking here in 1985

Pinukei HaOchel shel Carmel, "Carmel's food treats", or simply Carmel, is the Tripolitan restaurant Carmel and Aliza Naftali opened in the Netanya market in 1985, the year Asif and Rest give; Walla counted forty years in April 2025. Their son, Moshe (Momi) Naftali, owns it now and does the cooking: Walla wrote that he has worked there since he was 12, and he told it that in the early days the food was brought from home in carts. It is at the back of the building at 5 HaYahalom Street, near the market's upper entrance, on a street Walla called barely an alley. Inside are a few Formica tables and the pots in full view: the stews come down from a kitchen on a mezzanine to a counter of hot plates, the lids come off and diners choose, and Israel Hayom advised letting Moshe pick for you. Bread, pickles and chirshi reach the table first, couscous goes with everything, and a glass of sweet tea ends the meal. The dishes the press names are mafrum, chraime, tabcha bil salk of beef, beans and chard cooked until almost black, kamuniya and, for lovers of offal, stuffed stomach with kouklas, masran and matchuma; Maariv found in April 2025 that some stews are made only on set days. Walla put a plate with couscous, a stew, bread, pickles and tea at 75 shekels in April 2025, and Israel Hayom wrote in May 2025 that the dearest dish on the menu cost 70. It is open by day and closed on Saturday. Asif advises coming early, before a stew runs out, and wrote that regulars take food home, mostly on Fridays, and Walla found renovation workers on their break, taxi drivers and couples on a date at its tables. Walla's critic called it one of the best restaurants in Israel, Maariv's perhaps the best home-cooking restaurant in the country, and Oren Assif, for Asif, the country's temple of Tripolitan food.