A vibrant Mediterranean restaurant located near the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem, famous for its seasonal dishes made with fresh ingredients sourced directly from the market.
HaBasta is a highly regarded restaurant in Tel Aviv, known for its market-driven menu that changes daily based on the freshest seasonal ingredients sourced directly from the adjacent Shuk HaCarmel (Carmel Market). It offers an elegant dining experience with a focus on high-quality, fresh seafood and Israeli-Mediterranean flavors. While the restaurant's original location is on HaShomer Street near the market, a new branch has recently opened in Even Yehuda, which is noted as kosher.
Customers consistently praise HaBasta for its delicious, high-quality, and unique dishes, often highlighting the freshness of ingredients. The service is frequently described as amazing and attentive. Many consider it a fine dining experience worth the higher price point, appreciating the vibrant atmosphere stemming from its market location. Common themes in feedback include the excellent grilled calamari, yellowtail sashimi, and the iconic crab bourekas. Some minor criticisms include occasional slow kitchen service, small portions for the price, and sometimes bland cocktails, with wine being a preferred alternative from their extensive selection. The proximity to the market can lead to loud background noise, which some find adds to the atmosphere while others might find it distracting.
Additional Details
The restaurant's menu is handwritten daily to reflect the freshest available ingredients, ensuring a unique dining experience with each visit. It boasts an extensive and exciting alcohol menu, with a particular emphasis on wine, which is often recommended over cocktails by patrons.
It is highly recommended to book a table in advance, as the restaurant is usually busy, especially for dinner. Visiting midweek around 6 PM might offer a quieter experience, as it tends to be less crowded then.
5
We came midweek at 6pm, the restaurant was mostly empty.
Delicious food! We loved the yellowtail sashimi and enjoyed the shrimp and crab.
The service was amazing! Our waiter Michael was incredibly attentive and helpful- definetly a highlight of our experience.
If you're sensitive to loud background noise, be warned that the area is loud because it's right beside Shuk HaCarmel. We weren't bothered by it, it's part of the atmosphere.
I‘ve been to this restaurant many times and each time it is different and in a good way. The menu keeps changing according to the seasonal ingredients and is written each day by hand. All of the dishes are really special and something you probably won’t find in any other restaurant. Yes prices are high but welcome to Tel Aviv - this is the average price for a fine dining experience and in this place you get the value for money. Always very fresh and high quality food, a fantastic time to spend in the heart of the market.
If you want good food with an Israeli twist - this is it.
There’s no such thing as a perfect mea- oh wait. This was absolute perfection. Everything served is fresh from the sea or the market next door, the menu changes according to season and weather, and every ingredient is allowed to truly shine. Some dishes are staples so are usually available, like the wonderful grilled calamari or the salted honey tart (which was indescribably good); others come on and off the menu, like the notorious crab bourekas which we didn’t get to try (sigh).
Service was excellent and the alcohol menu is extensive and exciting. I would highly recommend to book a table in advance as the place is usually busy, and it’s definitely not the cheapest meal you’ll have in Tel Aviv. But I guarantee it’s worth it!
The atmosphere from the market is really nice and the food was excellent, although the portions were rather small for the price.
The cocktails were pretty bland, I suggest you order wine from their large selection instead.
Overall a great experience, but I'd expect lower prices for a place located in the market. This is not a fine dining restaurant as their name suggests.
This has been an unfortunate experience.
I've been excited to go to the Basta for a while. been hearing about their Crab Burekas and simple great food for a long time.
I'll start by saying, I love restaurants that style. simple. outside the market. when I was reading the menu I saw take offs to some traditional dishes. I ordered 19 dishes (and of course had the waiter told me I over ordered - but I hear that ALL the time).
Dishes are pretty big but we managed.
I'll start with the Sashimi, it was the first dish we received and it was simple and accurate. wasn't anything special.
I would avoid ALL the small plates as they were nothing interesting and mostly bad to be honest.
the steak tartare which I didn't plan on ordering was actually one of the best dishes of the night. the toast it was on was hot and the meat was phenomenal.
the crab carpaccio was ok. not bad but not good.
I ordered all 3 pasta dishes on the menu and all were good. accurate and perfectly cooked. here as well, nothing blew my mind. was good but nothing more.
we continued and got the Crab burekas (the iconic dish of the Basta) - it was the best dish of the night no doubt. though, even that, wasn't exceptional. it was good don't get me wrong. but I didn't fall off my chair.
the meat we ordered was ok but the gratin it came with was great! then came the octopus which I must say, I love octopus and the Basta does do one of the best I've ever had worldwide!
still waiting on 2 more dishes, the tortellini and the brain.
40 min past and we finally received the tortellini. not frustrated yet, but come one... 40 min between dishes?
another 40 min past and we still didn't get the brain we've ordered! it ended up taking almost an hr between the tortellini and the brain (which I asked to be served together) which is almost 2 hours from the last dish we've had which was the octopus. it was ridiculous. and the kitchen simply did not care as much as we asked, they kept saying 2 more min.
I ordered all the desserts when I arrived just to make sure they've got them when we finish our dinner.
towards the end of our dinner, after we've waited for the last 2 dishes. the waiter comes over and says that one of the desserts we've ordered is sold out even though he made to sure to put one aside.
I was shocked and his response was - it happens here a lot.
well, thats comforting!
when we did get all the desserts beside that ice cream that was sold out, they were meh... better off finishing our dinner and heading elsewhere for sweets. unfortunately, not the food nor the experience would make me go back.
*I’ll add and say that our waiter was really sweet and welcoming. He wasn’t the problem. But it seemed like the kitchen simply didn’t give a…
