MATTAT, Israel — The winding path to the chef Erez Komarovsky’s home, overlooking a village here in the Upper Galilee in Israel, is lined with a wild mix of pomegranate and olive trees, fennel and chickpea plants. It is fragrant with lemon, quince or apple blossoms, depending on the season.

There, in a stone house about a quarter-mile from the Lebanese border, Mr. Komarovsky, 55, tinkers with his latest culinary creations: a whole-eggplant dish roasted in his pizza oven, or a free-form babka with quince plucked from his garden. This summer, it was a festive torte of tiny fresh grape leaves encasing lamb and rice, topped with a pomegranate-fennel relish; the dish is just as good with Swiss chard in the fall.