To serve such noodles in such a place is nothing less than subversion (Photo: Eli Rivkin)
The cliff of time brings quite a few changes in the local catering culture of recent times.
The fact that restaurants have become so expensive, not necessarily by choice, leads to the prosperity of more modest intermediate solutions.
Wine bars for example.
Chef Benzi Arbel's Kafra Mew, in North King George in Tel Aviv, is one of the most prominent examples of the genre.
A northern Italian eatery that operates right on the street but does not serve street food.
At Kafra Mio we had a lovely meal last winter and encountered some of the best pasta options here.
The success of Kafra Mio, which started as a takeaway and delivery place in the days of the Corona virus, led Arbel to open another place, also Italian, again in King George.
But if the restaurants of the land of the boot in the wider world tend to be generic, and make use of selected items that have become classics from all over Italy without regional affiliation, Arbel, a man who knows a thing or two about cooking, creates a degree of differentiation here.
Kfar Mio, with its ravioli and tortellini, carries more to the rich north of Italy.
Calabria, named after a province in southern Italy, at the tip of the boot on the island of Sicily, revolves around much more southern food, which is obviously influenced by the Mediterranean terroir and the proximity to North Africa.
If the northern Italian Capra Mio sits in the fairer northern part of King George, Calabria is in King George at the corner of Bogarshov in Allenby.
Busier, tougher and less pompous.
If it's fun to sit on the street in Kfar Mio, sitting on a table on the street in Calabria involves quite a lot of noise and even more so exhaust fumes.
Unlike Kfar Miu, here there is also an interior space, with tables and a bar, huma, oltz and with a soundtrack at a volume that makes it difficult to speak and transmits a vibe of "going finishers".
Carpaccio in Calabria.
Reasonable and nothing else (Photo: Eli Rivkin)
The menu, which is quite long in the context of places of this type, has three categories: "Food as a Way of Life" which includes five fried appetizers;
Salad section, carpaccio and friends;
And a pasta section with nine options, most spaghetti-based and a few gnocchi, all handmade.
We ordered two glasses
of Pinot Grigio
(NIS 35 per glass) and a
Calabrese
souffle dish (NIS 50) and a
carpaccio
(NIS 65).
Before the food arrived we had a sip of the wine, simple, basic and everyday.
One that allows the restaurant to serve it at an equal price for everyone and still make a profit.
Why are there so few such options in restaurants here?
The souffle, two fried balls, loaded with white risotto and cheese, were really fun.
A risotto that is not too heavy, with a degree of sharpness and a hint of spiciness, the right degree of graininess, and super precise frying, one that does not leave a nasty aftertaste of unnecessary oiliness in the throat, and a sharp tomato sauce that is good for dipping.
A beautiful dish.
The carpaccio had fine meat, not much more than that, on which were heaped plenty of additives: lots of olive oil, garlic, wine vinegar, anchovies, rocket and cheese.
It wasn't bad and anchovies on a carpaccio is great but the combination made a bit too much of a mess that couldn't be organized properly.
It is possible and worthwhile to focus more correctly on this dish, which is damaged by the multiplication factor, and perhaps also invest in slightly higher meat than the one served here, which was, as mentioned, reasonable and nothing more.
Last week
Mazel Tov!
Another new and casual place was born in Tel Aviv
To the full article
Calabria.
It's good that there are places like this (Photo: Eli Rivkin)
From the pasta section, we went for one tomato-based -
gnocchi Gambro Rosso
(NIS 79) and the butter-based
Puccinita Porcini
(NIS 76).
The spaghetti itself was excellent: handmade, but one that would not easily slide down the throat of less experienced diners who are used to dry spaghetti.
Even serving it in an al dente state will not be easy for the casual diner.
To serve such noodles in such a place, which feeds everyone, is nothing less than subversion.
If the spaghetti was wonderful, the gnocchi stopped at "very good".
Delicious-delicious, but not cloudy, airy and heavenly like wonderful gnocchi can be.
Still, great gnocchi.
The tomato sauce of the gnocchi, with sage, parsley, breadcrumbs and quite a bit of shrimp was nice, cohesive, with a reasonable amount of depth of flavor.
The spaghetti dish came as an elongated roll with porcini, portobello, lots of butter and grana padano cheese.
It was a dish that radiated pure excellence, which, together with the great quality of the dough, ranks at the top of the pasta dishes you can get in Israel today.
We shared
soft milk ice cream
(NIS 40) in hazelnut sauce with candied hazelnuts, which even if the sugar levels could have been reduced a little, was delicious and fun.
The counter, which included two starters, two pastas, dessert, two glasses of wine and a small bottle of minerals, stopped at NIS 393.
This is roughly the amount we left at Kfar Mio for a meal in a similar format.
On the one hand, almost four hundred shekels for a pasta-based meal, with almost no protein, is not exactly little.
On the other hand, where do you go out today with "little" money?
On the other hand 2: it is possible to guess that most of the diners in Calabria manage without two starters and settle for two pastas, two glasses of wine and at most a shared salad.
It was a perfectly decent meal of its kind when only the carpaccio could have been better.
The rest of the dishes met expectations.
The souffle and the mushroom pasta were also excellent.
Calabria will succeed, and rightly so.
she deserves it.
It meets a real need for a more modest catering format, in an era where real restaurants are becoming less and less accessible to more and more people.
Arbel, an outstanding foodie and an entrepreneur with sharp senses, identified a market need and it is good to meet it, and for that he deserves full praise.
And yet, since these are sister restaurants, it is impossible without a word about the Italian derby of the places from Arbel's creator.
Calabria is definitely a worthy place, but if you push me against the wall and demand a comparison between the places, it seems to me that Kfar Mio takes the lead.
Not in a knock out, in points;
Not by much, and in football terms, with the help of VAR technology.
First of all, because of the location and the atmosphere.
It may be completely personal, but sitting on King George Street in Mesarek is more pleasant than doing it on King George corner Bogarshov, a location with an implicit urbanity factor but also with a certain coolness factor.
Kfar Mio outside is also nicer, in my opinion, than Calabria inside.
The food itself, the same in concept but different in effects, is good there in absolute terms a little more than Calabria.
And yet, as mentioned, it is about the beauty of a place.
Calabria, King George 29 Tel Aviv
invoice:
Souffle - 50
Carpaccio - 65
Gnocchi Gambro Rosso - 76
Puccinita porcini - 76
Milk ice cream - 40
2 glasses of wine - 70
Small minerals - 13
Total: 393
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