Cafe Landwer traces its origin all the way back to 1919 and Berlin, Germany, where Moshe Landwer opened his first coffee roastery and cafe. In 1933 for obvious reasons, the family emigrated to Tel Aviv and opened Palestine’s (now Israel’s) first coffee roaster and shop. The first modern Café Landwer restaurant opened in 2004, also in Tel Aviv, and started expanding globally shortly thereafter. The brand debuted in the U.S. in Boston in 2018 and has steadily grown, with 15 locations in North America, including the most recent opening in Las Vegas last April in an attractive storefront in Summerlin (on W. Charleston just west of Durango); it’s in the space formerly occupied by Chinglish Cantonese Wine Bar.
Cafe Landwer serves Israeli-Mediterranean-Middle Eastern cuisine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfasts include the “Famous”: two eggs, chopped salad, tzatziki, guacamole & salsa, skordilia (thick Greek dip, like hummus), feta cheese, Greek yogurt with berries and granola, honey, and strawberry jam, and bread; and the vegan omelet, with chopped salad, guacamole, salsa, matbucha (tomato-chili dip) , baba ganoush, artichoke, cherry tomatoes,
plant-based yogurt with berries and granola, skordilia, silan (date honey), strawberry jam, and pita (both $21). Also on the breakfast menu are two Benedicts ($19), three shakshukas ($17-$29), waffles and pancakes, breakfast parfait, and avocado toast ($13-$16).
Lunch consists of pita sandwiches like falafel, shawarma, smoked salmon, and schnitzel ($13-$18) and hummus bowls, while for dinner there are salads ($16-$21), pasta ($18-$21), and such entrees as kebabs, schnitzel, branzino, salmon, and vegan stir fry ($18-$32).
One thing we can say for sure is that no matter what you order, it’s very big food.
We tried the short rib shakshuka, which comes with chopped salad, a half-avocado, tahini, and fresh-baked challah (half a loaf straight from the oven). The short rib was cooked to perfection and the shakshuka, a spicy tomato-pepper stew topped by a fried egg, couldn’t have been more authentic and piquant. Even though we were stuffed halfway through, we were positively compelled to finish; we simply couldn’t stop eating. We did take home the tahini and half the challah.
We also ordered the bourekas to sample. This is an Israeli puff pastry filled with soft cheese and served with sides of a hard-boiled egg, radish slices, zhug (a Yemenese hot sauce), pickles, and tahini. We took that home whole and had as dessert for lunch and dinner that same day.
All in all, this meal wasn’t exactly a bargain; the bill, excluding tax and tip, came to $44. Next time, we’ll get the shakshuka sans short rib and skip the bourekas ($20). Still, it was the best, biggest, and most exotic breakfast we’ve had in many a year.