Israel: Gveenah

Who Cut the Gveenah?
CT Food Tour of the World at Gveenah, West Hartford
December 2025

I’m going to drop some West Hartford blasphemy: I’ve never really liked Black Bamboo that much. I like Black Bamboo’s commitment to vegetarianism and by all accounts they are a good business, but I just don’t understand the cult-like love for it.

(Non-locals: Black Bamboo is a Chinese restaurant that people really, really love.)

Black Bamboo moved about four blocks east on Farmington Avenue in 2024, creating the vacancy that Gveenah occupied. The space is tiny and once inside, it feels like you’re in a bustling little SoHo eatery. Gveenah is a BYOB joint – luckily located next to the flagship Harvest package store, which helpfully provides a tailored list of Israeli and Kosher wines for quick delivery as needed.

Based on my admittedly limited experiences at Gveenah and Black Bamboo, I’m glad Gveenah is here. And not just because it offers a unique menu in a town full of excellent dining options, but rather because, quite simply, it’s delicious.

In fact, I might have had my favorite bite of restaurant food in 2025 from Gveenah. And it was not fancy at all.

What is Gveenah? Why, it’s “West Hartford’s Mediterranean fusion restaurant, brought to life by Chef Roi Graber and Climor Ventures Group.” whatever that is.

Now, West Hartford has had a wonderful “Mediterranean fusion restaurant” about 4 blocks west of Gveenah for decades. Arugula is one of the Center’s longest-running businesses and was the very first West Hartford restaurant date I had with my now wife of 23 years. So, y’know, I sorta love Arugula.

What sets Gveenah apart is the reason this page you’re reading exists: It has Israeli dishes on the menu. Sure, Israel is on the Mediterranean Sea, and Gveenah’s menu has many non-Israeli dishes, but you know the drill by now: I’m here for the Israeli stuff. I think there’s only two other Israeli(ish) restaurants in the state as I write this – The Blondinit in Westport and Yosi Kitchen & Market in Windsor – and both also have menus that extend beyond Israel’s borders, no matter where you happen to think those borders are.

Chef Roi Graber, born and raised in Israel, ran multiple restaurants there. But he and his family fled after the terrorist attacks in October 2023 and came to the United States to stay with family members. He thought it would be a temporary measure for a few months, but the Jewish community in West Hartford helped them settle in and he has stayed.

He quickly got on track to do what he knows and loves, and Gveenah opened amazingly quickly – less than a year after his arrival. Gveenah’s menu focuses on dishes with vegetables, cheese and fish, with vegetarian and vegan options. I’m not going to go deep on the menu, as you’re fully capable of doing that. Just know your geography; the Mediterranean includes Italy (flatbreads), North Africa (shakshuka), Greece (moussaka), and of course Israel and the Middle East. The chef’s take on these and other classics is sometimes a bit nouveau.

For example, Graber has re-invented the traditional sabich pita sandwich as a focaccia flatbread, with roasted eggplant, hard-boiled egg, amba-tahini sauce, schug and cured lemon paste. A more traditional version is available at Yosi in Windsor, but having enjoyed this flatbread version I’m not sure I need to compare. This this is delicious and unexpected.

The eggplant was roasted and mashed up almost as much as you would for a baba ganoush. The egg, the fresh bread, the sauces and new-to-me flavors… Hoang and I ate this thing in like 3 minutes. It’s great.

I have come to love schug – It’s Yemeni and Israeli and is spicy with hot peppers, cilantro, and some other spices. It’s the kind of thing there are a billion versions of it I assume. I’d prefer it to be spicier, but I don’t think that’s what Israeli food is all about.

The amba sauce is a tangy, mildly spicy pickled mango condiment popular in Middle Eastern cuisine, particularly in Iraq and Israel.

Are you noticing these crossover countries and cuisines? Yemen and Israel. Iraq and Israel. Fascinating that food can do that but people and their religions can’t seem to figure it out. And I’m not even going to touch on hummus.

Let’s have some burekas. These are house-made puff pastry pockets filled with potato and parmesan, with tomato salsa side dip. As I said, nothing in Israeli cuisine is spicy or over the top. I realize I have zero knowledge of Israeli cuisine so I’m not sure why I’m saying that, but this salsa was subtle, fresh, vibrant, and just a great complement to the doughy heaviness of the burekas.

Not too much potato, not too much cheese, Hoang and I really enjoyed these burekas as well. I realize now that this is the only item I’ve eaten from Gveenah that contains cheese. “Gveenah” means cheese in Hebrew, apparently.

okay, at this point you’re likely curious what was one of the best bites I had in 2025 was. It was this:

Behold, the Jerusalem bagel.

This bad boy is traditional Palestinian street bread iconic to the Old City of Jerusalem. Unlike a standard New York-style bagel, it is note boiled and has a light and airy texture, and a generous coating of sesame seeds.

You rip off a hunk and dip it. And at Gveenah, GET THE LEBNAH. Labneh is a tangy, creamy Middle Eastern “yogurt cheese” made by straining yogurt (usually full-fat) to remove whey, resulting in a spread or soft cheese with the consistency of cream cheese, often seasoned with salt. They have a smoked lebhah here and I don’t know what I had exactly, but the fresh baked bagel, the airiness, the sesame, and the lebnah were divine.

Like, this should unite Jerusalem and bring all three Abrahamic religions, and their infinite offshoots, together as one. Literally breaking bread. I tried the bagel with schug and with whatever else they gave me. I loved it all.

We can yammer on all day about the best bagels around yada yada yada – give me this Jerusalem thing every time over the traditional boiled chewy bagel. And give me Gveenah’s lebnah over any cream cheese literally for the rest of my life.

I also got a tahini shake because that sounded awful. Turns out, that was also good. So when the thing you got because you thought it would be funny and gross was actually good? Yeah. You know that restaurant is legit.

Some background information from We-Ha.com and 2 non-food pictures from YeahThatsKosher – which, by the way, Gveenah began as a fully kosher establishment but that didn’t last long.

Gveenah
CTMQ’s CT World Food Tour