Seria: Even kosher keepers deserve more than this
It wasn't the kosher that bothered us, nor the fairness, just the casualness
My father Efrati
01/09/2022
Thursday, 01 September 2022, 08:15 Updated: 08:17
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Crudo Itias in Syria (Photo: Gali Eitan)
New hotels are opening in Tel Aviv mostly, Blue which is right by the sea.
But it's not every day that a Kempinski hotel opens here, a hotel belonging to the global luxury hotel chain.
So Kempinski has been here, on Tel Aviv's boardwalk, since the spring - and during the summer, Seria, his flagship Hachshara restaurant, which focuses on fish and dairy food, began operating.
The food at the hotel, which includes another restaurant and two bars, is signed by Moore Cohen, formerly at Herbert Samuel.
Kempinski, or in its full name "The David Kempinski Tel Aviv", joins the long list of global brand hotels stretching along Tel Aviv's coastline.
One only has to hope that over time he will not get tired and lose his flight like most of them.
Right now at least all the service people there seem energetic, enthusiastic and full of good intentions.
Did this manifest itself in proper service in the restaurant?
We will detail this later.
Either way, the feeling of the new is evident in everything.
When you come to Degel Kosher restaurant, in a hotel on Tel Aviv's sea line, you can't help but think of Daria, led by Hillel Tavakoli, who moved a little over a year ago at the Hilton.
This is, without a doubt, the best kosher operating in Israel and probably also the best kosher that has ever operated here.
Seria, it is already evident from the first glance at the menu, does not try to compete with it.
Here they don't go for creativity at all, they don't try to challenge and settle for what ranges from conservative to classic: a little ceviche, a little crudo, a little French, a little Italian, a little Mediterranean;
No inventions at all.
A menu that wants to get home safely but on the way gives up in advance the freshness and joy of life.
This is also how the space looks: not tied but classic of the serious and respectable kind.
Totally outdated in terms of its restaurant scene we are used to here.
Well, who is the target audience for such a place?
Kosher diners, who don't have who-knows-how many options, and tourists, mostly Jews who also eat kosher.
Certainly not local contemporary food lovers, looking to eat interesting or cool.
Does it live up to the condemnation of a restaurant, which has no interest in being creative or cool?
God forbid.
There should also be a place for restaurants whose central core is related to fairness.
I wish we had some restaurants like this here, fair and good.
It should just be tasty.
Seria Restaurant, Kempinski Hotel (Photo: Sivan Askew)
We sat down.
The restaurant is almost completely empty.
Lots of good intentions on the part of the waiters but very little efficiency - this element will come back as the second thread throughout the entire meal.
Yes, the general lack of waiters that is reflected in the service is also present here, in the luxury hotel.
It's okay, we're used to it.
when will it end
sometime
Along with the nightmare at the airports.
Maybe, I wish.
We started with
crudo intias
(NIS 76) and
roasted cabbage
(62 NIS).
The crudo dish had a few chunks of raw intias sitting on a modest fruit structure.
The base of the dish was gazpacho, which on the menu was called "apricot gazpacho" but in reality it was vegetable gazpacho with some fruit inside.
Was it bad?
No.
are good?
Of course not.
It was the casualness that set the tone in this dish.
We did not experience exceptional fish quality and nothing that could not be done at home was present in the gazpacho.
It can also be said this way: when a skilled home cook makes gazpacho with some fruit, it should turn out better.
This is certainly not a restaurant dish and certainly not a dish of a flagship restaurant in a luxury hotel that is pricing.
The cabbage dish had roasted white and purple cabbage, some mustard leaves, green salsa and comte cheese.
The cabbages were warm, the sauce cold.
No injustice was done to the cabbage or the sauce, but we didn't find anything noteworthy either.
We chewed them with apparent disinterest.
Another casual dish that leaves a clear and slightly sour feeling: the not thin line between reasonable home food and restaurant food,
Last week
What a great place, I will definitely come back here, and a lot
To the full article
Fisherman's Beach in Seria (Photo: Gali Eitan)
We continued with
a fisherman
's peach dish (NIS 96) from the section of the menu known as "Wheat and Grains".
When the food arrived, they explained to us that it was not pichi but tagliolini.
Not bad, the main thing is fresh and not dry.
The pasta, which was seasoned with salty-spicy, had alioli, tomatoes, breadcrumbs, garlic, capers, bottarga, chili and cubes of moser fillet.
Something to write home about or voila!?
Definately not.
Pasta from Mediterranean Italy, medium or lower in quality.
A week ago at Winona Forever we ate a pasta dish that is a cousin, not to mention a sister, of this dish, which you can't see from a shower.
Two months ago we ate some similar pastas in Crete, probably better, for seven or eight euros.
Oh, yes, here's something to write about after all: How much fish was in the fishermen's pasta?
5 really small cubes of moser fillet, not well made, completely symbolic, in a dose that aspires to be homeopathic.
Tuna steak
(148 NIS) served as a representative of the main meal.
It arrived seared on the outside, raw on the inside, with toppings reminiscent of a classic beef fillet steak dish: buttery mashed potatoes, black pepper sauce, green beans, zucchini and thin fries.
The array of add-ons scraped the mediocrity off the bottom.
The sauce was too sweet, the zucchini and beans seemed greasy, the mashed potatoes were barely passable and the chips bland.
Additions of this type should lift the fish.
These were downloaded.
And the fish itself really didn't do it.
Just another dish.
The waiter suggested a special
pavlova
dessert (NIS 52) and we went for it.
Inside a too small meringue shell was a bit of fruit salad, from mango and pineapple marinated in rum and lime, and around a kiwi and lime consomme.
It was too sweet, too weak, lacking in impact and completely anemic.
The pavlova of Seria (photo: Gali Eitan)
As mentioned, there is an audience for solid kosher food in a fair atmosphere, but it deserves to receive food that is a little more attractive than what Seria serves.
With the economic power behind the global Kempinski chain, it was possible to build a much better restaurant than this one.
We may not have eaten badly, but not only was nothing really good;
Everything was interfaced to the level of mediocrity, usually from the bottom.
When we finished the meal, we saw that there were quite a few tourists sitting outside the restaurant, which sits on the busy street.
Assuming that many of them are Jews who eat kosher, and given the pathetic dearth of reasonable kosher restaurants, this is a captive audience.
Not a good enough reason to feed him just that.
Seria, Kempinski Hotel, 51 Yarakon, Tel Aviv, 03-7768888
invoice:
Crudo Intias - 76
Roasted Cabbage - 62
Fisherman Tagliolini - 96
Tuna Steak - 148
Pavlova - 52
Demi Haliza - 75
Total: 509
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