We know where we had the worst meal of the year, but who is our restaurant of the year?
The year 2015 felt most of the time like a heavy, unregulated, not entirely responsible hyperactive sequence of opening restaurants, and yet, Avi Efrati sums up a year and chooses the high (and low) moments
My father Efrati
09/22/2022
Thursday, September 22, 2022, 08:15
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Share on Twitter
Share by email
Share in general
Comments
Comments
In contrast to the two years before it, Tashfav was conducted without closures. But it's not that we didn't feel the effects of the corona virus. Cooks and waiters continued to be a rare commodity, difficult to impossible to find, which was felt clearly and even more so in restaurants: this was expressed in significant gaps between different dishes in given meals, In embarrassing service shows and also in restaurants that failed to work at all of their capacity, due to a shortage of personnel. But the sword of the closure did not wave over the head of the scene, threatening to kill it, as in the previous two Hebrew years. This means that in the last year the scene has restarted itself. The Many new restaurants opened. Probably more than any other Hebrew year. The openings seemed like a heavy, unregulated, not entirely responsible hyperactive sequence. Is there room for all of them? Not really. How many of the huge hopes involved in opening a restaurant will crash on the sands of reality? Probably The following list will outline the character of the last restaurant year, through the selection of the outstanding successes of the year, as well as its failures.
Winona Forever (Photo: Ran Biran)
The best new wine bar this year - Winona Forever
The new wine bar led by Avitar Malka is one of the happier things that happened here in the last year.
Unpretentious but delicious food, which injects a small, playful twist into every dish;
Without trying to be too sophisticated but with plenty of rigor and style.
The wine menu at Winona is excellent.
He stays away from the mainstream, maintains a sane pricing and serves it from a happy and rare position: they will help you target your exact taste with small tasting pours, until you find what is best for you.
All this happens with real patience and generosity.
Winona is an outdoorsy place.
It was humid and steamy there all summer.
Now that it gets more reasonable in the evening, this is the place to go.
I wonder how they will cope there when it starts to get really cold.
For the full review of Winona Forever
Ahn Thai (Photo: Yael Itzhaki)
The best new Asian this year - Ahn Thai
There is a lot of Thai food in Israel - in any shopping mall you can always find some dishes of Thai origin - but only very few proper Thai restaurants, not to mention loyalty to the source.
Midd Stabinski acquired his active experience in Thailand.
At the opening of Ahn Thai, he stated that they would not eat Pad Thai at his place.
Indeed, his Ahn Thai is a true creation of Isani Thai grill, with a high loyalty to origin factor.
Delicious there, unpretentious there, spicy there and reasonably priced.
This is a restaurant with most of its tables sitting on the street, but its menu is relatively wide and varied.
Stabinski did keep his word and in Ahn Thai itself you will not find Pad Thai, but the success led him to open a kind of "next generation" that focuses on... Pad Thai.
For the full review of Ahn Thai Restaurant
Ibn Ezra (Photo: Yael Laor)
The best new traditional of the year - Ibn Ezra
Elran Scherpler grew up among the pots in the mythical market restaurant Azura, in Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem, led by his father, Ezra Scherpler.
There is already Azura in Tel Aviv, but Ibn Ezra takes the traditional folk food to the heights.
The level of investment and the quality there are reminiscent of the best and highest in the kebab and stew restaurants in Istanbul.
Along with stews and a great grill, there are wonderful salads, a wine menu of the kind you don't find in a kebab restaurant and a soundtrack that includes classical music.
This is, without a doubt, the best food of its kind that can be found in Israel.
The place, which was launched very recently, is currently open for lunch only.
It is priced on the expensive end of the scale.
Later, the restaurant should also open in the evening.
For the full review of Ibn Ezra restaurant
Hudson Lillenblum (Photo: Dan Peretz)
The most successful remake of the year - Hudson Lilienblum
Hudson has been rightly seen in recent years as the best meat restaurant in Israel.
The price hike of the last year has made it especially expensive.
During one of the corona closures, the Hudson captains opened Hudson Lilinbloom, a place where you could pick up take-away or eat on disposable plates outside.
Last summer the place changed its face and switched to serving full service.
It became the bistro of the great Hudson.
His prices are much more moderate than hers.
The menu does not include the large, stale and very expensive portions of the parent restaurant.
Here there are steaks that are a maximum of 350 grams and the most expensive of them is priced at NIS 175.
Not that it is little, but for these qualities, it is completely fine.
Hudson devotees can afford to enjoy the fruits of Chef Matan Abrahams' great work without creating a big hole in the bank account.
pleasure.
For the full review of Hudson Lilienbloom
Rasif 33 (Photo: Afik Gabai)
Disappointment of the year - Rasif 33
Chef Hamudi Okla filled his heart with joy and happiness last year, at the Acre food bar Sama.
All the virtues and more, were in his food there.
How disappointing it was to eat at the new Rasif, which was opened in Haifa port under his leadership.
Everything that succeeded in Sama seems to have failed in Rasif.
The successful attempt to elevate Shami Arab cuisine to a higher league, using techniques from modern cuisine, worked wonderfully at Sama.
Here, with a less nautical and more meaty emphasis, it just didn't work.
The feeling is that with all due respect to the enormous talent, he can't dance at too many weddings.
For the full review of Rasif 33
Eyal Shani (Photo: Ariel Efron)
The worst meal of the year - Deborah
There are few words that can describe the meal we had at Deborah, the new Hachshara restaurant signed by Eyal Shani.
A clear line is drawn between food that did not succeed and a place that was built in advance as a hall that maximizes the status of Shani - who has long since turned from chef to presenter.
Sometimes you eat badly but feel that someone tried very hard only to fail, due to lack of talent or problems with execution.
In Deborah the clear feeling was that of a clear change.
After all, to make good food when he wants, two are able.
But the all-embracing expansion of his restaurants, which his partner Shahar Segal trusted, has long since become imperialistic in every respect.
The cuisine there is the last interesting entry.
The review dinner at Deborah left no choice but to sum it up with one word: shame.
For the full review of Deborah
Kilometer (Photo: Assaf Karla)
The worst phenomena of the year - "copy and paste" and restaurants in Brown hotels
Deborah is not only a witness to the blatant commercialism of the Segal Tan Shani duo, she is also a link in the emerging chain of restaurants in the "Brown Collection" boutique hotels.
Senior chefs, well-known names, were recruited to establish restaurants in new hotels, built menus and signed off on food that does not even begin to scratch the surface of the known qualities of their original restaurants.
The main thing is to open another restaurant, and one more, on the knife.
This is the version of the "Ali Express" for the chef's restaurants, in the Israeli version of the year 2021-22.
And when a restaurant from this group finally arrived, led by a professional who really works in it regularly - below is the mileage of Idan (Pompey) Boushari - unlike the haltorah of the well-known chefs who were forced to take on the role of ensuring economic stability in a deceptive period, this too turned out to be a haltorah.
For the full review of Kilometer Restaurant
The restaurants in the Brown hotels are the clearest and most blatant example of the phenomenon, but beyond that, it seems that this year more than ever restaurants seemed to be this "copy and paste" version of its neighbor.
So many places of the "seen one, seen them all" genre and so few original works.
The economic anxiety, the derivative of the post-trauma from the Corona era, accelerated this year even more the phenomenon that was also known in previous years.
Yossi Sheetrit and Yuval Ben Naria, stacks of Build Up (photo: photo processing, Yuval Ben Naria: Lior Golsad, photo Yossi Sheetrit: Assaf Carla)
Restaurant of the year - ?
"Restaurant of the Year" is a mandatory title.
It is relevant to large, invested and creative restaurants.
Obviously, it cannot be a folk restaurant, a street restaurant or a wine bar.
In the previous two years, over which the corona epidemic cast a particularly heavy shadow, no restaurants of this type were opened.
That's why I didn't choose the summaries of the year for the last two years in "Restaurant of the Year".
This year, two particularly invested news stories were launched, claiming the crown: Yossi Shetrit's Hiba and Yuval Ben Naria's a.
Sheetrit and Ben Naria have many rights and shares here.
Ben Naria made Taizo Fine Dining an Asian aspect.
Meshia in the days of Sheetrit Shem, was an amusement park of contemporary creative cuisine, with Mediterranean and Moroccan references.
a And the new ones were built with piles of build up.
They were supposed to be the peak of the chefs' work, with a lot of investment in design and experience.
With hesitation we ate a meal that reflected an unbearable gap between a huge cost and value.
It was a delicious meal that felt more and more drab from dish to dish and revealed a colossally sad failure of one of the most talented and professional professionals ever to operate here.
For the full review of Hiva Labadil
, it cannot be said that we ate badly at a.
Most of the time it was even delicious there.
This is a restaurant where everything about the experience interface is undoubtedly impressive and includes many wow factors.
But the food there, as good and decent as it may be, did not turn out to be one of the wow factors of the place.
tasty?
Yes, even if it sometimes creates a feeling of a certain one-phaseness, within the framework of the journey that Ben Naria undertakes to explore the umami.
There is a lot of good food of its kind in a but only little, if any, really excellent food.
Therefore, it cannot be chosen as the restaurant of the year either.
For the full review of a
May God grant that this year there will be enough cooks and waiters; that prices will be adjusted, that fewer "Coffee Feast" restaurants will open and that no good restaurant will close for us.
Happy New Year!
Food
reviews
My father Efrati
Tags
restaurants
My father Efrati
year summary
Yuval Ben Naria
second stag
Yossi Sheetrit