Last week I had the experience of eating one of the best steaks I have ever tasted. It was at Harvey’s SMOKEHOUSE restaurant in Jerusalem. The steak is called “Gurina-aged Argentinian entrecote”.
I am a steak lover, both to eat and to grill, and I consider myself a steak connoisseur. I’ve eaten a lot of kosher steaks in Israel, in the US and in South America, and I have experience in comparisons. This ‘Gurina’ steak from Harvey’s was the tastiest I’ve eaten in Israel to date. Really state of the art, although here it’s more appropriate to say “steak of the art” “. All the other steaks I have eaten do not come close to this at all. To describe this steak in one word – excellent! In one sentence – a steak of a lifetime!
This steak is aged at room temperature. All the meats come from Argentina, and only the finest are selected. The secret of the good taste is in the special aging. The head chef, Joel Davis, explains that in the first step the meat is aged for a month of “wet” aging while it is wrapped in lamb fat. In the second stage, dry aging for a week or two, during which the fat develops inside the meat.
The steak cut easily. It is soft and pleasant and softer to chew than normal red meat. Every bite is an almost spiritual experience. A normal portion is 350 grams, which is an amount for more than one diner. The steak is served with chimichurri sauce.
I opened the review with the steak dish that excited me, but Harvey’s restaurant is known for its smoked meats.
The first dish we chose from the menu was “burnt ends”. These are beef brisket cubes caramelized in Kansas style barbecue sauce, served with sweet potato chips on the side of the serving bowl. A ‘smokehouse salad’ was also served with them, which includes tomato vegetables in two colors, lettuce leaves and crispy fried onion curls, with avocado in raunch sauce, and with the addition of chicken breast strips in barbecue sauce and lamb bacon, which greatly upgraded the salad.
For the main course, we were served a plate of three smoked meats: brisket, roast beef, and pulled rib meat. The portions were very large and generous. The plate is served to a couple of diners, but we were unable to finish the abundance that was served. We liked the roast beef and the brisket, but I didn’t like the shredded rib meat. It’s not because of the dish, but because after the amazing steak, every other meat just seems mediocre in taste. A matter of “bisproportion”. It is possible that if I had tasted the smoked meats first they would have tasted better to my palate.
Next to the meat platter is served a fresh salad seasoned with salt crystals and ground black pepper, with olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice. This salad is a perfect addition to the smoked meat. The coleslaw salad is very fresh and it is noticeable that it is produced locally. At Harvey’s, sauces are also taken more seriously than usual. We were served several sauces and among them stood out an aioli sauce of mayonnaise and garlic. Yum Yum!
The smoking is done in the restaurant’s kitchen at a low temperature, and with the help of hickory wood only, which adds a special flavor. Chef Yoel explains that he usually smokes each type of meat for a different amount of time. For example, the brisket served to us was smoked for 14 hours, the roast beef “only” 4 hours, and the pulled rib meat was smoked for 18 hours. This is how the smoking time also changes for other dishes that I haven’t tasted. Yoel Huyal took me to the kitchen to show me the two smokehouses that were specially imported from the USA.
Harvey’s also has locally brewed cocktail drinks and cold beers, and they also offer a dessert menu of souffle, pie, sorbet, or creme borla. My wife and I did not want to taste the sweet desserts in order to keep the rare taste of the meats in our mouths and on our tongues.
Harvey’s Restaurant boasts a kosher certificate from the Chief Rabbinate and the Religious Council for Jerusalem. The restaurant is located in an excellent location in the center of Jerusalem, on Jaffa Street 33, two houses after Zion Square towards the Old City, but the entrance is not from the front of the building on the busy Jaffa Street but from the side on the small and quiet Rivlin Street.
The hall is very spacious, decorated in South American style with heavy wooden tables.
The restaurant was founded by Chef Haim (Harvey) Sandler who graduated in Canada as a chef in 2002, and received the Canadian RED SEAL decoration. He opened restaurants and a catering company in Canada, and over the years became the leader in kosher catering in Vancouver for events of up to 650 people.
In 2010 he fulfilled his dream of immigrating to Israel, and here too he continued to work in the culinary field, and later he also worked in private events. There he met his business partner who together purchased the Gabriel restaurant. About four years ago Harvey opened the HARVEY’S SMOKEHOUSE restaurant, which is the only wood-smoked restaurant in the Jerusalem area, where you can host about 100 diners inside and another 70 diners outside. The restaurant is open every weekday from noon to 11 at night.
Despite the prestigious quality, the prices are not very expensive, but reasonable prices for every soul around her and in Sabion.
After the tasting, we give Harvey’s 5 “Shepra stars”, which are worth at least two Michelin stars, if Michelin were to come to Israel as well. If you want to celebrate something special – this is the recommended place.
