The reality culture won, we lost: another fake chef with a fake restaurant

If this is what the grand prize for winning the program looks like - a collaboration with Brown's instant collection - it's a little sad

My father Efrati

08/18/2022

Thursday, August 18, 2022, 08:30 Updated: 08:33

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Kilometer (Photo: Assaf Karla)

In the last year, the Israeli restaurant scene has been flooded with new restaurants from the creator of the Brown Hotels Group.

Another boutique hotel opens and another restaurant opens on its entrance floor, all by well-known chefs who own active restaurants;

All of them are from the instant genre.

The new Kilometerz is another restaurant in Brown's boutique hotel - its name is Brut, but its opening figures, for a change, are a little different.

Unlike the other restaurants described above, to which a well-known chef gave his name and built a menu, but the core of his work continues to be his private restaurant, Kilometerz was established as a restaurant for a professional who will lead it and be exclusively there.

Idan (Pompy) Bushari is the winner of "Israel's Next Restaurant" on Channel 13 and the grand prize is Kilometerz - a chef's restaurant that was opened especially for him.

chef?

A chef's restaurant?

mileage?

All of these will require a little more.

The new restaurant is located in a space that reminds quite a lot of quite a few people here.

Herbert Samuel was opened here in 2007, led by Jonathan Rochefeld.

Quite a bit of good and even excellent food was served in this space at the time.

Serving food in it is mandatory.

You enter a space of a kilometer, which requires climbing many stairs, and the restaurant, which is supposed to be new, does not feel like that.

Do you know the difference between a new and a "refurbished" smartphone?

So.

And how renewed?

When you really look at the details, it is not certain that these are tasteful high-end details, not even just any connoisseurship.

There is something almost inherent in the place, a kind of feeling of a rented apartment in "reasonable" condition or a second-hand car, that "there is nothing to do, that's how it is when you don't buy a new one".

If you think that this is what the big prize for winning the reality show looks like - a collaboration with Brown's instant collection - it's a little sad. But the uninvested renovation is the last of Kilometer's problems. If the other parameters there were up to some reasonable standard, obviously we wouldn't complain about it .

A catastrophe without compromise and a culinary connection (Photo: Assaf Carla)

The menu at Kilometerz is local Mediterranean and consists of small dishes, starters that are all fish, a tabon section and not many mains.

We went for a meal structure that was based on two representatives for Tabon -

(48 NIS) and

(46 NIS);

First three -

(NIS 70),

(NIS 71) and

(NIS 71);

and

(NIS 146).

The food arrived.

In the apricot dish there were three halved apricots, roasted with leek, leaves, green oil and more.

The apricots were soft and overripe, the added value of the burning of the tabon and the additives with which they were added felt like a not very organized mess.

Karhana is illogical and very unsuccessful.

A dish that indicates a lack of conceptual experience and executive carelessness.

The brie cheese portion in the tabon was successful, mainly because there are cheeses that are good for them by putting them in the oven or on the tabon.

In other words, it was the raw material that spoke here, not the chef, who at least knew how to differentiate from the apricot portion, not to be bald about the raw material.

In the Intias sashimi portion, the failure from the apricot portion returned again.

The relatively large pieces of fish were fine on their own, even if they had a bit too much salt on them.

The surrounding was already a horror.

It increased, or rather decreased, the pepper-coriander cream which was just terrible and terrible in itself.

Along with halved grapes, which the dish promised would be "frozen on half" and arrived at room temperature, and hazelnut shards, it sent sad signals to the palate.

The fact that according to the "crudo" (raw fish) standard it was fine, as a dish it is a catastrophe without meaning and culinary context, in an awkward execution.

On the pieces of fish in the red tuna carpaccio dish were cilantro, cucumber and a lot of hazelnut pieces.

The waitress poured a "ponzo vinaigrette" sauce over her that was gross and insanely sweet.

Such a flavor-concentrated liquid instantly takes over the raw fish, removing every bit of good flavor from it.

Conquering and destroying Asian cuisine.

We know such brutal flavors from generic Pan Asian restaurants in Israel;

Eden Ben Zaken of the culinary world.

What does this have to do with Mediterranean chef cuisine?

For the solution pumps.

Last week

The view - bluff, the food - catastrophe

To the full article

Bushari.

It has long been clear that the use of the term "chef" in Israel is absurdly inflationary (Photo: Assaf Karla)

When the beef tartare dish arrived, on bruschetta with caper aioli and green onions, we rubbed our eyes a little.

The previous two fish starters were of reasonable, even decent, dosage.

Here were two minis, not to mention micro bruschettas.

The size was a bite-sized starter for each diner, which is located in a different section of the menu and also at a completely different pricing.

Someone in the mileage was probably confused or, in contrast, went over the degree of severity.

The taste was generic, unremarkable, with too much greasiness and over presence of aioli.

71 shekels for this little thing is insolence and brazenness.

The steak was good.

Like the only other ingredient-based dish in this meal - the brie cheese - it was seared to the right point and it functioned as our only consolation.

It was served alongside pumpkin in a tabon and one of the more blatant hallucinations long remembered here: goat lavane with pumpkin seed streusel.

How many culinary hashes can you come up with anyway?

At least the meat was good.

After this presentation we didn't really feel like dessert anymore.

We ordered, because we had to, a dessert known as "

(NIS 55) based on 3 sorbets: Grapefruit Campari, Pineapple Thyme and Champagne. The long time that passed from the moment the dish was ordered until it arrived was suspicious. It was very soft and the third melted completely and dribbled on the fruit cubes. The dish must have waited a long time from the moment it came out until someone took it to our table. We called the waiter and pointed to the dribble sorbet. He didn't really understand what was wrong here and we had to explain to him. and promised to send a new batch.

Time has passed again.

and more time.

and more.

a lot of time.

All this time the waiters were seen huddled together, talking to each other and giggling.

The woman had a long conversation with someone. Not a single eye was busy at the table whose dessert had been spoiled. And she, again, shyly refused to come. We broke down. We asked for the bill, wondering if anyone would notice that the bill arrives before the dessert comes. Noticed that the bill arrived including a charge for the dessert.

We called the waitress and explained to her that we cannot be charged for a dessert that did not arrive.

The AHMS that promised to send the dessert came again. No explanation, no apology, nothing. I am not one of the legions of the sadistic subculture of the Israeli diner who says "You screwed up, now how will you compensate me?" This is disgusting to me. You can compensate, you don't have to; but At the very least, we must take responsibility, explain. With the exception of not including the dessert in the final pricing, this event did not receive any attention from the mileage people. The sorbet portion itself, if you were wondering, was terrible. Insanely sweet, devoid of nuance, unnecessary.

This is not the "flor" of a chef's restaurant;

This is a neighborhood.

This is the place to tell that the point of departure from the rectangular bar of the restaurant is a kind of opening shelf, to which our table was right next to.

The number of times that kitchen staff, dishwashers, etc. passed in close proximity to us during the meal, some of the time with boxes, at least once with a garbage bag, was unimaginable.

You have no choice and this must be the exit point from the bar?

Do not put a table next to it.

Does the food we received at this meal reveal a professional who can be called a chef?

no and no.

The only two good dishes - cheese in the oven and steak - were because they relied on good raw material.

Everything else not only did not mention the work of a chef, but was also very far from the performance of not only a really young sous chef or a reasonable operational chef.

At most a cook with a relative mastery of certain techniques, without any ability to connect them and think.

It has long been clear that the use of the term "chef" in Israel is absurdly inflationary.

All chefs.

This summer, when we are exposed to more and more new places led by reality TV graduates, what we have understood in principle until now is beginning to become clear to the palate as well: the reality TV shows crowning fake heroes, among them the ability to lead a long-distance restaurant.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that Boushari is now cooking in the space where Yonatan Rochefeld worked for years - the one who served as a critic and as the figure of professional authority in the program "Israel's Greatest Restaurant" in which he won.

The big one went, the little one came.

Only that, in contrast, the elder, in his good years, had enough of them, he was huge.

Another new restaurant in the "Brown Collection" hotel.

We thought that for a change it would be different.

So we thought.

invoice:

Roasted apricot - 48

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