Flaky pastry parcels filled with cheese, potato or spinach, brushed with egg and sesame or poppy seed, sold hot from bakery trays across the city as breakfast, snack or Shabbat morning ritual.
Where to eat it: 2 restaurants across 1 city.
Borek pastry traces to Ottoman kitchens, descended from Byzantine layered pies and the Turkic yufka dough tradition; the word comes from the Turkish burmek, to roll or twist. After the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain, Sephardic communities settling across the Ottoman Empire adopted borek, and it reached Israel with Sephardi immigrants from Turkey, Bulgaria and Thessaloniki, spelled bourekas in Hebrew. Serving them at Shabbat breakfast became customary in Sephardic households. Haim Bourekas bakes the Bulgarian-style cheese and spinach version in Shapira, now with a vegan one beside it, and Abulafia's Allenby branch bakes its own tray around the clock.
Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Sesame
Tip from the editors. Mark the two fillings with different seeds; an unmarked tray means guessing cheese from potato until you bite in.
Haim Bourekas on Mesilat Yesharim Street in Tel Aviv bakes Bulgarian-style bourekas in the Shapira neighbourhood, with a vegan version beside the classics.
TryBulgarian-style cheese and spinach bourekas
TipGo before 09:00 for the cheese bourekas straight from the oven, still steaming when the paper bag is folded shut.
Abulafia's Allenby Street branch in Tel Aviv bakes the Jaffa bakery's knafeh, sambousak and bourekas around the clock, every single day of the week.
TryKnafeh, sambousak and bourekas
TipSambousak with different fillings, knafeh and malawach all come off the same trays, so point at whatever is freshest.
More cities are in research. Want bourekas covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.
