Last service at Eucalyptus restaurant as a Jerusalem institution closes
Beloved restaurateur Moshe Basson, who put mallow and nettles on the menu, bids goodbye to nightly dinners, but says he will still forage for biblical farm-to-table dishes
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Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
It was 9 p.m. on Wednesday, and Jerusalem restaurant Eucalyptus was full of diners jonesing for one last meal before the beloved eatery closed for good.
Moshe Basson, restaurateur, chef, and expert forager, is 75 years old and says he has other dreams he wants to fulfill, including offering foraging workshops in the Jerusalem Forest and hosting meals in private homes and at special events.
“Closing is really something good for me,” said Basson. “It’s sad, it’s bittersweet, but I’m thinking about it as a pregnancy. The end of a pregnancy is hard, and that’s what I had in the last months, but the birth is a kind of freedom, and there’s happiness and the new life, and that’s how I see it.”
On the second-to-last night of his restaurant career, Basson stood at the front of Eucalyptus for the daily maklouba ritual, placing the large metal pot on a table before hitting it seven times, adding an eighth tap for good luck.
He then unveiled the giant upside-down dish of chicken, rice, and vegetables that all diners were welcome to serve themselves.
At the wooden tables, diners were choosing from the familiar menu, sipping cocktails served with sprigs of herbs, eating fried cauliflower drizzled with tomato cream, and bowls of thick red lentil stew.
They munched on the always-fresh Eucalyptus Salad, a mix of greens, kohlrabi, and radish sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, choosing dishes of lamb, fish, or meat, sometimes served with roasted carrots, tomatoes, and purple onion, or a delicate mound of risotto.
The restaurant is named for a tree planted by Basson in his family’s garden in the 1960s. His brother Ya’acov built a restaurant around the tree, with a menu initially geared toward the classic Israeli workers’ lunch.
Basson, who likes to say he trained by cooking during his army service for fellow soldiers in the Suez Canal, began incorporating wild edible roots and plants alongside seasonal produce.
Eucalyptus has moved several times since then, including spending several years in Safra Square in the late 1990s, when this reporter first met Basson and foraged with him for morel mushrooms and wild greens.
The restaurant has been in its current location under the Old City walls since 2015, serving a mix of locals, tourists and VIPs, hosting life cycle events as well as diners’ birthdays and anniversaries.
It became a unique farm-to-table restaurant with a biblical kitchen, as Basson likes to say, but he’s never absolute about anything, given his penchant for foraging and using what he picks for dinner service that night.
Like all Jerusalem restaurants, Eucalyptus has had to adjust itself to the uncertainties of the times and security situation, including a prolonged closure after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.
Basson reopened the venue months after October 7, when he also launched “The Eucalyptus Cookbook,” a compilation of recipes that he published in September 2023, but celebrated only much later.
As Basson bid goodbye to diners on Wednesday night, he posed for selfies, stopped to give hugs, and seemed at peace with his decision.
“I’m hearing the music,” he said. “And I’m dancing.”
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