Ottoman-Era Sweet Shop · Cheese Pastry

Knafeh (Kashash Sweets)

Photo: Rain7105 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The shop behind Acre's most talked-about knafeh started in 1915 as a single cart selling peanut and sesame sweets — it's now a four-generation family business still run by descendants of the original founder.

Shredded semolina dough is layered over soft white cheese, baked until the top turns deep orange, then drenched in sugar syrup and topped with crushed pistachios. Kashash Sweets, a long-running shop in Acre's Old City market founded in 1915, still prepares it using methods passed down through four generations.

Why it's made this way: Kashash Sweets was founded in 1915, in the last years of Ottoman rule, and has stayed in the same family ever since — food writers single it out as one of the country's most traditional places to eat knafeh.