Safeed is an historic town in Northern Israel known for its orthodox religious tradition.  Narrow windy streets filled with men in traditional hasidic clothing.

It felt like a very serious place. We walked through quiet synagogues and shopped at religious themed stores. Although there was no doubt a certain level of mysticism to the place, we felt a little let down. We were ready to head back to our hotel, the Safeed Inn. That is until we met Ronan.

Ronan owns the Yemonite Food Bar located in one of the many narrow streets. What caught our attention was the large crowd gathered in front watching as he prepared his pizza using a series of theatrical touches. Once we got closer, we saw that his ingredients looked delicious so sat down at the only table in the place up near the cooking area.

Despite the crowd, we appeared to be the only actual customers and Ronan immediately came over to offer us glasses of wine from the bottle he had been drinking. There was no menu so we just asked him to make us his favorites.  

Although Ronan’s food was some of the best we had on the trip, the real highlight was him. After he finished cooking he came and joined us for dinner. I asked him why he had named his store the “Yemonite Food Bar” and he told me that he was Yemonite and this was a food bar…makes sense. Then he admitted that he actually changed the name and the sign frequently.  Not only was he extremely entertaining he told us a lot about the city and the people who lived there. If you ever find yourself in Safeed I recommend looking him up.