Café Noir Schnitzel (Cafe Noir)
Cafe Noir opened in 1997 and has been rooted in its place ever since.
Here and there she had minor cosmetic treatments, but basically, it's the same place.
Rare are the places that operate for so many years without closing/changing owners/changing concept, place or name.
In such a frenetic and so unsafe reality for restaurants - contrary to what some tend to think, restaurants were an area at risk much, much before the corona crisis - this is really unusual.
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the late Avi Efrati Rafi Bader and Gideon Eliyahu were the ones who founded Noir at the time.
The paintings of Bader, a restaurateur and actually a painter who faced a serious illness for many years and died prematurely, were and still are hanging on the walls here.
Tel Aviv is not Paris.
The lifespan of a restaurant is so short.
There are no bistros that fed and continue to feed fathers, sons and grandsons, therefore there is almost no way to talk about an "institution" in the context of restaurants in Israel.
Noir's 26 years is, in local terms, quite an extraordinary length.
aromas of seniority.
Cafe Noir (Photo: Anatoly Michaelou)
You don't design new places like that, but there is no sense of anachronism in the place.
pleasant in it
Cafe Noir never claimed to be the avant-garde and the creative spearhead of the local culinary scene.
On the contrary, the perception was and still is of a place that is meant for people and you don't need to check the kitchen statistics there over the years to know that the most ordered dishes are hamburgers and schnitzels.
The latter, even if he did not invent the wheel in its ingredients and taste, is definitely part of the heritage of the place - thin pieces of chicken breast that are joined together (there is no way to make such a schnitzel in such dimensions from one tight piece) into a huge blanket, for a couple, not to mention a family, that covers a huge plate Shlomo.
The huge showcases made of black iron next to dim lighting and lots of art on the walls make up the design DNA of the place.
In 1997 it felt crowded.
Today it feels classic, bistro-European, with aromas of age.
You don't design new places like that, but there is no sense of anachronism in the place.
pleasant in it.
What a shame
If all the dishes were as delicious as this kebab
To the full article
by necessity.
Cafe Noir's tartare (photo: Omer Israeli)
I don't belong to the "you gave me away, now what will you give me?" genre.
We didn't ask for anything.
Apologizing and taking responsibility is good enough
We arrived at Noir as a family and had to wait over fifteen minutes outside because our table was not ready.
It was cold and downright nasty.
In the same breath, they apologized profusely and promised to compensate.
I don't belong to the "you gave me away, now what will you give me?" genre.
We didn't ask for anything.
Apologizing and taking responsibility is good enough.
We ordered arancini (NIS 56), red tuna tartare (NIS 73) and noir salad (NIS 56).
Before the starters came, on the house, bread with a nice spicy dish.
The arancini, three balls of risotto with fried cheese and pesto, were delicious.
This is a basic dish that is served anywhere that touches, even a little, Italian, and it was impeccably made.
The filling was tasty, not moldy or too heavy and the frying was accurate and did not leave any greasy residue in the balls.
I have no doubt that bluefin tuna tartare was not part of Noir's menu when it opened in 1997.
Like arancini, tartar is also a necessity today, certainly in a restaurant with a clear degree of eclecticism like Noir.
On three small slices of challah burnt with aioli, rested cubes of red tuna in a relatively generous dose, with yuzu flavors and a subtle spicy touch.
Not a dish that invents or innovates anything, but one that is well made and pleasant to bite into.
Noir's salad, with vegetables, crispy pita shreds and feta, revealed vegetables that were not compromised in their selection, good cheese and seasoning without injustice.
Huge as ever, thin as ever.
Cafe Noir's Schnitzel (Photo: My Social)
You come here to check the familiar and the old, to check that we are not worn out and that the kitchen continues to provide the familiar goods without weakening
The opening set went, therefore, without surprises for better or worse.
Noir's kitchen reflected him as one that does its job efficiently and matter-of-factly.
Our mains included the allways dishes of the place, the ones that everyone-including-everyone orders - hamburger (78), double chicken schnitzel (73), chicken in spices (78) and gnocchi in tomato butter (78).
Dishes of this type are not part of the ordering DNA of the writer of these lines.
I visit restaurants to track down the less conventional dishes, which are the new or innovative ones.
But you don't come to Noir to check out the "new seasonal menu" mainly because there isn't one.
You come here to check the familiar and the old, to check that we haven't worn out and that the kitchen continues to provide the familiar goods without weakening.
The schnitzel, huge as always, thin as always and with batter as well seasoned as always, was successful.
I have never had a noir that was not well seasoned.
Some people come there specifically to eat it.
Not me, but he was great.
The gnocchi, with roasted tomatoes, butter, leek confit, spinach and oregano was absolutely lovely.
Cute dumplings, a balanced sauce, not too heavy and altogether absolutely sympathetic.
Maybe a little more.
Cafe Noir's hamburger (Photo: Haim Yosef)
These were the two best mains.
The burger wasn't bad, but landed somewhere on the ground of mediocrity.
If the schnitzel and the gnocchi represented standard dishes in an execution that gave them some sense of an upgrade, the hamburger touched mediocrity, i.e. it was standard without an upgrade.
It's not bad, but it seems a little more is possible.
The least good dish of the meal was the chickpeas, on a Druze pita with grilled vegetables.
The chicks themselves were not dried, but the seasoning was too banal.
We are in a restaurant for the whole family, but a little touch is still required.
Cauliflower roasted in tahini and mashed potatoes turned out to be completely worthy additions, standard but this time with a clear sense of quality.
We closed with a New York style cheesecake (49) which was not too sweet, balanced and fun.
The promise has been fulfilled.
The bill at Cafe Noir (Photo: ShutterStock)
Culinarily, Noir is a generic restaurant.
The food most of the time is not bad at all within the limits of the genre.
What undoubtedly distinguishes it from many other hamburger-schnitzel restaurants is the successful casing.
The design, the atmosphere, the artistic vibe, the service;
All of these build a proper packaging that knows how to create an experience.
Therefore, you don't come here for the best tartare in town, but for a meal that knows how to provide almost anyone with a dish to their liking, without pretension and at a moderate price.
When the bill arrived we discovered that the promise from the beginning of the evening, after the delay in our income, had been fulfilled.
Remove the most expensive of the first (the tuna tartare), the dessert and one cup of tea, and the plate of spicy bread arrived, as mentioned, at the expense of the house.
This brought the bill down to NIS 596.
In addition to the dishes that were taken down (not including spicy bread), the counter should have stopped at a little over NIS 700.
This is also not much for five hungry people who also drank two glasses of wine and one beer.
This is an amount that we used to leave on a meal for two, before service.
So it's true, Noir is not a chef's restaurant, but this simple and unpretentious one is better and nicer to me than several chef restaurants I've eaten at recently, and they were a waste of time and money.
"Cafe Noir", Ahad Ha'am 43, Tel Aviv, 03-5663018
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