Olympus Restaurant is one of the oldest restaurants in Israel, founded in 1932 at the corner of Kishon and Levinsky Streets in Tel Aviv. It’s a Greek restaurant, but not the kind with loud music, dancing, and singing. Instead, it offers a taste of traditional Greek fare brought here by the Jews of Thessaloniki. You’ll find moussaka, leek fritters, and a bit of ouzo, with many tears possibly mingling with it if there’s time to listen to the owner Mister Yona’s stories.

 

Yona Nachman inherited the restaurant from his father, Yosef (Papo), who had inherited it from his predecessors, Shlomo Stromza and his partners. Papo Nachman and his wife, Dora, survived Auschwitz, met in Bergen-Belsen, immigrated to Israel, and joined Olympus. In 1991, Yona relocated the restaurant to Carlebach Street, where it remains today. Olympus sometimes feels like a club of regulars (as every good place should), but its door is open to everyone.  

“For a half-Greek like me, Olympus makes me  long for grandma’s house, but it’s also proof that even today, deep into the 21st century, you can find food here that’s not just a show on a plate but a soul on a plate,” says writer Hilik Gurfinkel. “This soul, with its Holocaust legacy (which mirrors my family’s own Holocaust story, along with the Polish side), immigration, and a whole life in the State of Israel, is essentially our entire history, folded into layers of a single moussaka.”