Had there been a Michelin guide in Israel, this restaurant would have been worth a star

The initial shock of the high prices on the menu put on by Pastel Gal Ben Moshe, was quickly replaced by great pleasure.

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Food

23/06/2022

Thursday, 23 June 2022, 08:27

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Pastel.

Every visit is admirable (Photo: Anatoly Michaelou)

The re-launch of Pastel, under Chef Gal Ben Moshe, is without a doubt one of the most intriguing events in Israeli restaurants in the past year.

Ben Moshe is the second Israeli chef (after Moshik Roth) to win a Michelin star for his Berlin restaurant Prism.

In Prism, Ben Moshe serves Middle Eastern food with Shami accents (southern Syria-Lebanon-Galilee) in a contemporary adaptation.

This is his working DNA, which he also brings to Pastel.

The three chefs who have cooked at Pastel since it opened in 2012 have not run in this culinary space.

It is difficult to overstate the coefficient of expectations with which we came to Pastel.

Admittedly, the latest attempt by an Israeli chef who managed to set up a kitchen abroad - Moshik Roth in Toto, Summer 2014 - was a resounding failure; except that the story of Ben Moshe and Pastel is different. At his toto's I'm not sure I've recovered to this day.Ben Moshe did not come to change in relation to what he presents in Berlin.

We arrived at Pastel on a midweek evening.

Every visit to this invested and beautiful restaurant, which overlooks the sculpture garden at the Tel Aviv Museum, especially in the evening, always arouses admiration for the sheer aesthetics that exist there.

It's a contemporary European in every sense of the word, which sometimes feels a little too big and aesthetic on our sweaty Mediterranean.

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NIS 92 for Intias Na (Photo: Haim Yosef)

The menu is short and focused: bread and a starter, six starters, six mains and that's it.

Pricing is expensive: NIS 86 for the first octopus-based, NIS 92 for antias na and calamari;

NIS 178 for the main shrimp, NIS 188 for locus and NIS 196 for a lamb-based dish.

There is also a tasting menu at NIS 395 per diner.

Pastel of recent years has been an expensive chef restaurant.

She is like that even now.

We started with

(NIS 32),

(NIS 86) and

(NIS 76).

Already in the portion of bread, Ben Moshe's meticulous investment, not to mention insane, is evident in every detail.

Several slices of bread and with them Emmer-based rolls - an ancient grain originating in Germany - and olive oil butter: butter-textured olive oil, with cocoa.

The first of the first two dishes elicited an exclamation from us: the octopus dish is actually a dashi-based soup with grilled octopus chunks with lamb fat (Lardo lia) and vegetables: artichokes, cherry tomatoes and silicornia.

The Dashi axis managed to be complex, expressive - nonetheless Dashi - and also refined.

The octopus was perfectly seared and its combined combustion of the lamb, along with the dashi, was kind of a small miracle.

The vegetables retained their texture and added a layer to the soup, which despite being a dashi evoked associations with vegetable consumption.

A spoon with an octopus, a vegetable and an axis was a masterpiece of harmony striving for perfection.

We continued to Shishbarak with salty stuffing.

The small portion has three pockets, the large five.

The shish kebab dough was perfect.

The stuffing is excellent.

The texture of the surrounding flavors added plenty of complexity: sunflower cream underneath, chive oil and what was called on the XO menu Mushrooms: Fermented mushrooms that added a clear umami touch and crispy garlic on top that added crispiness.

We are used (and very much like) to a classic shish kebab, with meat in hot yogurt soup.

This was a particularly impressive interpretation of Shishbarak.

Far-reaching on the one hand but proportionate and restrained on the other, of a chef with a statement, a clear imprint and supreme performance ability.

The antagonism because of the high pricing disappeared after these first two.

They were so unconventional, invested, reasoned and really tasty, that the heart really rejoiced over them.

Locust with leeks and unripe grapes.

Incredibly delicious (Photo: Haim Yosef)

We continued to the mains:

(NIS 188) and

(NIS 112).

The fish portion had three chunks of locus, in unripe grape butter, unripe grapes, leek stew and XO shrimp - fermented shrimp.

This too was a really great dish.

The pieces of fish were seared with supreme precision and the complexity of the flavors of the unripe grape butter, the fermented shrimp and the steamed leek touched, once again, the whole.

It was incredibly delicious.

The Lulu chicken portion had chunks of chicken and next to them a vine leaf stuffed with foie gras, with fennel cream and a warm blood orange vinaigrette sauce.

It was a creative and graceful way to treat chickens - the raw material hit Israeli - but compared to the three dishes described so far it was a less complete dish.

The sparks we were exposed to were less there and to my taste there was also a bit of over-sweetness.

You could say this as well: if we had received this dish elsewhere and not after such an impressive purposeful display, I would probably feel that this is a great way to treat chickens.

In the current meal this was the least impressive dish of the meal.

We switched to sweet.

Five desserts on the new dessert menu and it is worded briefly: milk and honey, olive oil, lime pumpkin, chocolate and small sweets;

And also priced very moderately compared to the other dishes here.

We went for "olive oil" (48) and "milk and honey" (44).

At the base of the olive oil dish was an almond jelly and olive oil underneath which was a cookie with mandarin sorbet.

The connection between the flavors of almonds, citrus and olive oil was another moment in this meal of touching perfection.

The sweetness was subdued, the citrus gave plenty of freshness, the olive oil was very present and there was a degree of crunch.

This is a dish for the advanced, which contains less sweetness and olive oil in their dessert.

As such it is great.

In "Milk and Honey" there was a semolina cake at the base, a kind of sabosa, with penne cotta, loquat sorbet, sugar twill on top and Earl Gray sauce with a touch of chamomile.

Another excellent dish, sweeter than the previous one, in which each of the flavor components - semolina, penne cotta, loquat, honey, Earl Gray and chamomile - is completely present.

"Milk and honey" an excellent dessert (Photo: Haim Yosef)

It was an impressive purpose presentation.

I have not enjoyed a local chef restaurant so much in a long time.

As someone who has eaten quite a bit at star-studded restaurants abroad, I know that not every Michelin star a restaurant wins attests to high-level sophisticated food. Many Michelin stars are not justified at all. Moshe managed to put together a creative menu, whose starting point is the Middle East, the techniques are excellent, the

workmanship

is excellent and the food is full of character and delicious.

Level exactly to which we were exposed in the meal described here, which took place during his last days. If the base level is not maintained then the model has failed. We will keep our fingers crossed that this is not what will happen.

And as for pastel: in recent years this restaurant has been looking for a way to change direction and identity and not just speak to an older and established audience.

It will be interesting to see if this dramatic culinary change of direction will indeed bring new, younger audiences to the venue.

The bill - 586 shekels before drinks and service - turned out to be somehow less expensive than you imagine when you browse the menu and in general no more than what we get to leave in the last year in restaurants for all kinds of starters and snacks.

It is true that one of our mains was chicken based and significantly cheaper and yet, when you start with another starter and another snack you easily get much more than that in enough restaurants today.

So not that pastel is not expensive is just not much more expensive than the continuum that has been forced on us in the last year, with that perceptual illusion that intermediate fat is less expensive.

In terms of food qualities and assuming the base resin we met will be preserved, this is one of the most fascinating and good restaurants operating in Israel at the moment.

It's good that Ben Moshe is back here and that Pastel will just continue like this.

invoice:

Bread and butter Olive oil - 32

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