Negev, Israel's Largest Desert, Is a Gastronomic Oasis

Camping in israel, The biggest news in the Negev is the Isrotel hotel group’s Beresheet, which opened in April on the edge of the Ramon Crater—Israel’s Grand Canyon—about a two–hour drive from Tel Aviv. Something of an Israeli version of the new Aman resorts in Utah and Turkey, the 111-room Beresheet perches on a 12-acre expanse of scorched earth, a series of rustic-chic local-stone bungalows, all smartly appointed and many with their own plunge pools, arranged around a central courtyard, pool, restaurant, and spa. The restaurant proves a garden of Middle Eastern delights; its daily buffet is a cornucopia of chickpea-dotted humus, smokey baba ghanoush, creamy labneh, in-season vegetable salads, fresh breads and more. The spa, meanwhile, Moroccan- tinged in design and with a white-marble Hammam, takes its menu from Isrotel’s beloved Carmel Forest Spa Resort in the country’s north. Service kinks and growing pains aside, there’s no more luxurious place to use as a base for explorations of the region. These explorations can be myriad, and the hotel should be able to help you arrange many of them—from bike, horse, and Jeep rides through the crater, to hot air balloon rides over it, and rappelling routes down its sides. For culinary adventure, there’s Chez Eugene, another recently opened spot, this one a restaurant with six mod suites in a former industrial hanger. Started by a French expat who fell in love with the region and decided to open a European-style auberge, Eugene boasts a chef trained at Copenhagen’s Noma, one of modern gastronomy’s holy grails, who spins out seasonal Mediterranean fare from the desert’s surprising bounty.