Wadi Nisnas: The Tastiest Streets in Haifa

Ask anyone in Haifa where to eat and the answer is usually the same: go down to Wadi Nisnas. The neighbourhood sits just below the German Colony, a dense grid of narrow streets that has been the Arab Christian and Muslim heart of the city for well over a century.

Breakfast here is hummus, and Haifa takes hummus seriously. The good places open early, serve one thing properly, and are finished by early afternoon. You order it with whole chickpeas, with ful, or with pine nuts and olive oil, and it arrives with pickles, raw onion and bread that keeps coming until you surrender.

Then comes the walking. Spice shops with open sacks, a butcher next to a bakery next to a stand selling nothing but freshly fried falafel. Look for the small bakeries turning out za'atar and cheese manakish, sesame kaak, and sfiha with minced meat and pine nuts. For dessert, knafeh: shredded pastry over hot cheese, soaked in syrup, cut in front of you and eaten standing up while it burns your mouth.

Wadi Nisnas is also an open-air gallery. Since the 1990s the walls, gates and alleys have carried sculptures, mosaics and paintings from the Museum on the Street project, so every turn hides something. In December the neighbourhood hosts the Holiday of Holidays festival, when Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan celebrations overlap in the same streets and the market runs late with music and food stalls.

Practical things: most food places close on Sunday morning rather than Saturday, portions are large, and the streets are steep in places. Bring cash and an appetite, skip breakfast at the hotel.

Our Haifa culinary day combines Wadi Nisnas with the German Colony and a Druze table on the Carmel, so you taste three cuisines of the same city in one day.