There is no casual opinion about hummus in Israel. You have a position. You know which place makes the best. You've argued about it. You're prepared to argue about it again, right now, if someone wants to go.
This is the thing about Israeli food: it's not just food. It's identity, community, and daily ritual all at once. Here's a guide to the dishes you need to know — and the culture that surrounds them.
Hummus (חומוס)
Hummus — from the Arabic word for chickpea — is the foundation of the Israeli table. It's eaten at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It appears as a side dish, a main course, and occasionally a vehicle for everything else on the plate. It is never, ever a dip for carrot sticks.
Real hummus is smooth, warm, freshly made, and served in a bowl with a pool of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, and whole chickpeas on top. It is eaten with fresh pita, torn and used to scoop. Nothing else is required.
The hummus debate — who makes the best, in which city, in which specific hole-in-the-wall spot that doesn't take reservations and only opens until noon — is a defining feature of Israeli social life. Every Israeli has an answer. No two Israelis have the same one. If you're serious about hummus, the Hummus T-Shirt is for you.
Shakshuka (שקשוקה)
Shakshuka is eggs poached in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, cooked in a cast iron pan and brought to the table still bubbling. It is the perfect meal — simple, deeply satisfying, infinitely variable, and somehow both humble and impressive at the same time.
Its origins are North African — the word comes from the Maghrebi Arabic, meaning mixture — and it travelled to Israel with Tunisian and Libyan Jewish immigrants who made it central to the Israeli breakfast table. Today it's eaten at every meal and at every time of day. There is no wrong time for shakshuka.
The debate here is about the sauce: tomato-based (the classic) versus green shakshuka (tomatillo and herbs, a more recent variant). Both are correct. Neither camp will admit it.
Falafel (פלאפל)
Falafel — deep-fried balls of ground chickpeas and herbs — is Israel's street food. Eaten in a pita with salad, tahini, and pickles, it is fast, cheap, filling, and extraordinarily good when done well.
The best falafel in Tel Aviv is found at a stand you walk past, where the cook has been doing this for thirty years and knows exactly how long each ball needs in the oil. It is not found at a restaurant with a menu and table service. You know it's good when the line is long and moving fast. For falafel devotees, the Sababa Falafel T-Shirt says it all.
Sabich (סביח)
Sabich is the answer to the question of what to have instead of falafel — a pita stuffed with fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, tahini, and amba (a pungent, addictive pickled mango sauce). It originated with Iraqi Jewish immigrants who ate it as a Shabbat morning meal, and it's now one of the great sandwiches of the world.
If you haven't had sabich, this is your instruction to fix that.
Bourekas (בורקס)
Bourekas are flaky pastry filled with cheese, potato, spinach, or mushroom — a Sephardic pastry tradition brought to Israel by Jewish immigrants from Turkey and the Balkans. They're sold at bakeries, eaten on the go, and consumed with a hard-boiled egg and a small salad in a combination that shouldn't work as well as it does.
The different shapes tell you the filling: triangles for cheese, rectangles for potato, round for mushroom. This is important information.
The Shabbat Table
Shabbat dinner is the centre of Jewish food culture — a weekly occasion that brings families together around dishes that vary by community and tradition but always involve effort, intention, and abundance.
Ashkenazi families might set a table with chicken soup, gefilte fish, and roast chicken. Sephardic families might bring out couscous, slow-cooked meats, and a dozen salads. Mizrahi families might fill the table with dishes from Iraq, Iran, or Yemen. Every tradition is different, and every table is full.
The Shabbat table is where the food is more than food — it's the week's anchor, the family's ritual, and the place where recipes get handed down from one generation to the next.
Wear the Food
We make apparel for people who take their hummus seriously. Browse the Jewish Culture collection for pieces that celebrate Israeli and Jewish food culture — for people who know the difference between good hummus and great hummus, and aren't afraid to say so.
And if you're ever in Tel Aviv, get the hummus at Abu Hassan in Jaffa. You can thank us later.