The Dairy That Became a Restaurant Favorite Opens in Tel Aviv
About the small dairy, Makhlevat Boutique and the Gvina cheese shop
Cheese maker: Tamir Peretz Kosher: Yes Address: Givat Haim Ihud; 61 Shlomo Road, Tel Aviv Phone: 058-7005582 Opening hours: Givat Haim Ihud, Tuesday to Wednesday 09:00 to 15:00, Thursday until 16:00, Friday until 14:00; Tel Aviv, Monday to Thursday 09:00 to 18:00, Friday 09:00 to 14:00
On 18.5, at the perfect timing for Shavuot, something happened: “The Little Dairy” arrived in the big city. In south Tel Aviv, on busy Shlomo Road, the couple, cheese maker Tamir Peretz and gastronome Dana Tal, opened a small cheese shop with a large display window. At its center is a display refrigerator packed with Italian-style cow’s milk cheeses, whole wheels and slabs of hard cheeses alongside mozzarella, scamorza, provolone, stracciatella and fresh ricotta. Peretz makes them all by hand in Kibbutz Givat Haim Ihud, from milk from the kibbutz dairy farm next to the creamery.
When the Shavuot dust settled, I met Tal. We have known each other for about a decade. When I edited the magazine “Hashulchan,” she wrote to me about her experiences at Lago Scuro, an enchanting farm in northern Italy, where Peretz specialized in making traditional Piedmontese cheeses. Tal, who had then completed studies at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, said then that their dream was to return to the kibbutz where Peretz grew up and establish an artisanal dairy. Proof from the farmers’ market in 2021, the dream became reality. The first cheeses, Nili, Gali and Ofri, began appearing on restaurant menus, including Pizza Laila, Claro and Pronto. Since then, the range has expanded, the dairy has built a reputation, and today it supplies dozens of restaurants and shops. Now it is the private customers’ turn.
“We’ve wanted to come to Tel Aviv for a long time,” Tal says about the decision. “A year ago we did a pop-up at Raya, the bar at Pizza Laila, and it wasn’t successful. People didn’t come. But דווקא because of that, we got excited. We understood that the expansion had to come from the private market. We felt ready to spread the word beyond restaurants.”
The proof came from the Jaffa farmers’ market, where they participate regularly. “We saw how it goes there. Within two hours the cheeses are gone. We understood that we needed to come here.” Baker Hagai Ben Yehuda, owner of the wonderful bakery “Hagai vehaLehem,” connected them with the broker who found them a property near his bakery. “When we met the landlord, an Italian named Massimo Portalione, we understood that this was it. The lease was signed at the height of the war and within a month we opened. People called excitedly and shouted, ‘We can’t believe you’re here.’ In Givat Haim it took more than a year to build an audience, and here it is happening faster than I expected.”
According to her, the location plays a significant role. “South Tel Aviv is a developing area, and next to Hagai there is a warm and supportive environment. People are generous, they buy, and they give a very pleasant feeling.”
Later on, the place is expected to expand beyond cheese sales. “We plan to sell sandwiches with Hagai’s bread, coffee, make pizzas in the afternoon, and aperitivo in the evenings. But the essence will remain our cheeses. This is not just another deli that gathers cheeses from here and there. I am a store for one dairy. Here you can find only our cheeses, and at the highest level of freshness possible, we bring cheeses here three times a week.”
The big cheeses of the little dairy
To understand why the cheeses from the little dairy are so tasty, it is recommended to visit the shop in Kibbutz Givat Haim Ihud, next to the creamery. They are made from the freshest milk available, transferred directly from the milking facility to the pasteurization tank and then into production, by hand, with natural cultures. Peretz and his team produce daily the cheeses that age on pine shelves for anywhere from three months to a year. Peretz draws 1,500 liters of milk from the cowshed every day.
Among the hard cheeses, Gali stands out, a cheese in the style of Toma Piemontese, aged for at least six months on pine shelves, with a sweet and balanced flavor; Nili, a cheese in the style of Fontina, aged for at least six months on pine shelves, aromatic and rich in flavor; Ofri, a cheese in the style of caciotta, delicate with a pleasant nutty flavor; and Naomi, a semi-hard blue cheese in the style of gorgonzola, aged 100 days, with strong flavors.
In the pasta filata family, you will find hand-shaped mozzarella balls made using the traditional Italian method; scamorza, aged and dried mozzarella, excellent for pizzas and pastries; snake mozzarella, soft and easy to work with; and, of course, stracciatella, which is a dish in itself. No matter what you add to it, roasted vegetables, fresh vegetables, good olive oil, it will do the job. And there is Lior, a semi-soft cheese with wonderful aromas, and fresh ricotta, the remnants of whey turned into a creamy, dreamy cheese.
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The dairy’s story began in Australia, where Tal and Peretz met on a post-army trip. When they returned to Israel, Peretz began working at the Yekevs dairy and fell in love with the profession. Tal dreamed of studying gastronomy in Italy, and when she was accepted, they went together. “I went to the university administrators and said: my husband is looking for work. Within two weeks he found a job at a small family factory producing Piedmontese cheeses. Much of our work today is based on what he learned there.”
After their studies they continued to an internship at Lago Scuro. When the visa expired, they returned to Israel. Eti, the veteran cheesemaker at the kibbutz dairy, retired and the position became vacant. Peretz asked to replace her and got the job.
“At first everything was chaotic,” Tal recalls. “One day Tamir told the kibbutz: there are no more farm cheeses, there is Gali and Nili. Just like that, without labels, he started producing hard cheeses and putting them in the supermarket refrigerator. The kibbutz approved us to buy a vacuum machine for 500 shekels and that was it. We wanted to rent the dairy and the equipment from the kibbutz, but we ran into difficulties. Then the coronavirus came and the dream faded. We were discouraged.”
The change came with the appointment of a new management in the kibbutz, which gave them the green light. The business plan was approved, a full partnership, 50-50 with the kibbutz, the dairy was renovated, a production license was obtained, and the business got underway.
“Little by little we started marketing. Tamir went from restaurant to restaurant and did tastings. It was a period when restaurants took pride in working with small producers and mentioning it on their menus, and that helped us a lot.”
According to her, their biggest advantage was the direct connection with customers. “There were no agents and no drivers, everything went through us. We always met the customers ourselves. We produced, transported, supplied and provided service. Communication was the top priority.”
The stracciatella craze
At the beginning, Peretz insisted on making only hard cheeses. Tal, who is responsible for the business side, pushed to expand the range to include cheeses from the mozzarella family. “I begged him, but Tamir said, ‘No way,’” she laughs. “The change came when Oren Avni from the Neapolitan pizzeria in Haifa knocked on the door and asked us to teach his team to make scamorza. He sent people to the dairy to learn how to stretch cheese, and we started producing pasta filata for him. Later we went to Rome, ate at Bonci’s pizzeria, and saw stracciatella and strands of mozzarella on the pizzas. The next day Tamir started making them himself.”
The hard cheeses became the dairy’s hallmark, but stracciatella is actually its biggest star. “It’s a product that almost didn’t exist in Israel. People started to get to know it from Italy, with burrata, after all, stracciatella, strands of mozzarella in cream, is the original filling of burrata. It took us a long time to develop a product we were truly proud of. Today the curd of the stracciatella is richer and fattier, the mozzarella sheet is broken up by hand, like a comb, then transferred into containers, the cheese is pinched, given a kind of massage, and mixed with the best cream there is.”
No wonder people are in love with the soft cheese and its dreamy flavors. “It is our best-selling cheese,” Tal proudly says.
