In the heart of Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Market, where spice merchants, nut vendors, and specialty shops overlap in tight alleyways, one delicatessen has quietly carried Turkish-Jewish culinary knowledge across generations. If you want to explore the market with the stories and tastings behind places like this, join my Levinsky Market food tour. Yom Tov Delicatessen, located at Levinsky 43, has been operating for over fifty years, preserving techniques learned in Istanbul and refined in Tel Aviv by the Levi family.
From Istanbul to Tel Aviv
The story begins in 1947, when Yom Tov Levi opened his first delicatessen in Istanbul. Raised within Turkey’s Sephardic Jewish community, he trained under Istanbul’s şef mazıtım, master craftsmen responsible for the most demanding tasks of the trade. Cheese aging, sausage curing, fish preservation, and vegetable pickling were not casual skills. They required precision, patience, and years of hands-on learning.
These masters passed down entire systems of knowledge. How cheeses were aged without industrial refrigeration. How spice ratios shift with fat content in sucuk. How salinity and time determine whether a pickle develops depth or collapses into mush. Yom Tov absorbed these techniques through repetition, observation, and correction.
In 1969, Yom Tov immigrated to Israel with his son Moshe and reopened his delicatessen in Levinsky Market. At the time, Levinsky was known as a hub for Turkish, Greek, and Balkan Jewish foodways. Delicatessens dominated the area, serving a working-class clientele seeking familiar tastes from home.
Levinsky Market Changes Around Them
When the Levi family arrived, Levinsky Market was defined by cured meats, pickled vegetables, and imported delicacies from the eastern Mediterranean. That identity began shifting in the 1990s with the arrival of Iranian Jewish refugees after the 1979 revolution. Nut shops, dried fruit vendors, and Persian spice merchants reshaped the market’s character, earning it the nickname “Little Tehran.”
Yom Tov Delicatessen adapted without abandoning its roots. Turkish-Jewish deli traditions continued alongside Persian spice stalls, forming the layered cultural mix that defines Levinsky today. Old shops and new businesses coexist as working commerce rather than nostalgia.
What Makes Yom Tov Delicatessen Distinct
- Pastruma. Air-dried and spiced beef prepared according to Turkish-Jewish methods, relying on controlled curing, spice balance, and patience.
- Turkish sausages (sucuk). Hand-crafted using spice blends learned in Istanbul, balancing heat, fat, and fermentation.
- Pickles and preserves. Each vegetable prepared with its own brine strength, timing, and seasoning.
- Lakerdá. Salt-cured mackerel rooted in Sephardic Turkish and Greek Jewish tradition.
- House-made salads. Eggplant, tahini, peppers, yogurt, and herbs layered according to mezze traditions.
- Eggplant jam. Made from a five-hundred-year-old family recipe reflecting Ottoman Sephardic kitchens.
- Medjool dates stuffed with kaymak. Pairing fruit and cream in classic Turkish style.
- Rehydrated hibiscus flowers. Stuffed with cream cheese, balancing acidity, floral notes, and richness.
- Stuffed vine leaves. Still hand-rolled rather than machine-made.
Three Generations at the Counter
Over the decades, leadership of the shop has shifted within the family as knowledge was passed down. For many years, the public face of the delicatessen was Yomi Levy, the third generation, who guided the business through a period of rapid change in Levinsky Market.
Today, the business is run jointly by Yomi and Eitan Levi. Yomi oversees the newer branch, while Eitan works daily at the Levinsky Market shop alongside his mother, Simcha, maintaining the rhythm and standards of the original location. While operations have evolved, the core practices remain intact.
On Fridays, the shop fills with regulars, chefs, and visitors who plan their week around a stop at the counter. The service remains knowledgeable, direct, and generous, with guidance offered on hosting, cooking, and product selection.
A Legacy Remembered
In 2024, Yom Tov Levi passed away at nearly one hundred years old. He witnessed a modest Istanbul delicatessen become a Levinsky Market institution. Their family continues to apply techniques learned decades earlier, unchanged in principle and refined through practice.
What has kept the shop alive is continuity. Each generation adapts while maintaining the core practices that define the craft.
Yom Tov Delicatessen
Levinsky Market Location. Levinsky 43, Tel Aviv
Second Location. 14 Aliyat HaNoar Street, Tel Aviv
Ask questions. Sample the salads. Take home vine leaves still rolled by hand.
