Basta Restaurant, Tel Aviv (Basta)
Besta is one of the more unique animals in the restaurant industry here.
The duration of her work begins to approach twenty years.
No design office has ever worked hard on her design or on a face lift and a new outfit.
Most of her tables are surrounded by a glass "winter closure" or scattered in the street, meters from the Carmel Market, and she is always jubilant and happy.
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such places were once called "market restaurants", but from the moment the phrase was coined, it gained so much scorn that it is a bit uncomfortable to talk about it in the same breath as proper restaurants.
Unlike all those places that have misused the concept, the Basta insists on being faithful to the spirit that has characterized it since it opened.
The male change in the leadership of the place (Aviram Katz leads it instead of Mauz Elonim) did not change his DNA either.
Rejoicing and happy.
Basta (Photo: Tamar Danieli Lahav)
The DNA remains.
Basta (Photo: Tamar Danieli Lahav)
The emphasis is on raw materials, which are expected to be the best of their kind and handled correctly, alongside small and appropriate flavor additives
From a place with one "winter closing" the Basta became one that dominates two spaces.
The menu, as always there, comes on a printed page, written by hand, including deletions of the finished dishes.
It includes a "all kinds of small plates" category and "green", "sea" and "meat" wings.
As always, the cuisine here moves along the seam lines between France, Italy, the Mediterranean and the Arab-Semitic cuisine.
For example, the title of the menu on the evening we ate there was "Between Nazareth and Piedmont".
In the green section, as well as the small plates section, there are many options for vegetarians and quite a few options for vegans as well.
In the meat section, on the other hand, there is a tendency to bypass the standard cuts channel and prefer what some would consider hardcore - brain, turkey throat stew, lamb's liver, testicles and more.
In the sea wing, there are no aquaculture fish of uniform size (and taste) such as bream or bream.
In other words: just from looking at the menu it is clear that here they are very careful not to be carried away to the industrialized wing of the world of food and restaurants, and that this is not the place to look for innovations and inventions from the worlds of creative haute cuisine.
The emphasis is on raw materials, which are expected to be the best of their kind and handled correctly, alongside small and appropriate flavor additives.
What a shame
We haven't received such offers in a restaurant for a long time.
We didn't miss it at all
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Mediterranean harmony.
Basta (Photo: Tamar Danieli Lahav)
We started with a plancha plancha dish with tzatziki vine leaves (59) which represented a dialogue between the Arab-Balkan worlds.
The slimy fluidity that characterizes the classic Egyptian salty stew was replaced in this dish by the flavors of warm, slightly bitter, earthy burnt mini greens, seasoned with a precise and correct hand, studded with half-made garlic, which added its own presence, with really excellent yogurt.
A simple, simple dish, in which each element represents the best in its field, and all its parts come together for a particularly delicious Mediterranean harmony.
Lahi Locus (89) was the other first.
It is difficult to exaggerate the description of areas of a fish that are not the fillet where everyone is used to - wing or cheek for example.
You can also say it this way - Locust liver is life, provided it comes from raw material that is the real thing in its freshest possible form.
The cheek we received, very large, crispy on the outside and fried just right, came with lemon, salsa and white horseradish aioli.
The last two were not needed.
The meat of the fish, which was extracted from the bones easily, was so delicious that a little sprinkling of lemon would have been enough.
Undoubtedly: this Locus cheek was life itself.
Nazareth wins.
Lamb stew of the besta (photo: Aviram Katz)
We continued with calamari plancha (129) and lamb neck and pea stew (139).
The calamari, five in number, large and headless, excelled greatly in quality.
They came with onions, pickled lemon and tomatoes, the flavors of which together created an intense, somewhat heavy, very tasty consistency.
The lamb neck stew, with Paul and a frikki side, was excellent.
A lot of meat, very fatty of course, with a nice degree of spiciness, not excessive, which the smoky flavors of the freaks went well with.
If the title of the daily menu was "Between Nazareth and Piedmont", it is, obviously, the Nazarene element, which was well made.
We have eaten nothing less than excellent until now and we were a little disappointed to find out that the dessert - creme brulee (40) - was significantly less good than anything ordered up to that moment.
Not a bad crème brûlée though, not just average either, but compared to the rest of the food, which ranges from very good some of the time to excellent the rest of the time, a merely reasonable brûlée is less.
outstanding
The calamari of the besta (photo: Tamar Danieli Lahav)
The bill arrived.
NIS 498 before liquids and service.
The Basta was once considered one of the most expensive restaurants in the city.
You got used to eating there, leaving a lot and sorting out the cognitive dissonance with the understanding that excellent ingredients pay.
Based on the meal described in the lines above, Basta is no longer such an expensive place.
498 for a meal that also included bread (excellent) and butter at the house's expense, this is even less than the average rate.
The excellent Acre gin, from the local Julius Distillery, along with an equally excellent tonic from Naama Sternlicht, added NIS 42 and Henry Bourdin pastis NIS 35. In total, the counter stopped at 533 NIS, for a change, not including haliza fees, because Basta does not charge such.
The wine, for those who are wondering, was a wonderful "White Signature 2013" of Safra Winery, which lasted a decade with truly heroic valor.
less than average.
The account in Basta (Photo: ShutterStock)
Besta, then, is part of a phenomenon we are exposed to recently - restaurants that in the pre-corona era were perceived as expensive did not really raise prices or raised them slightly, while others, which were not necessarily considered expensive, raised them dramatically.
Beyond the mostly excellent food, the sane pricing and the excellent and varied wine menu, which knows how to match a good bottle to every pocket, not just for the rich, fun at Basta.
The relaxed nonchalance, the ease and the simple and good natural joy of this place, make it one of the favorite cities of refuge from the crises of everyday life.
These days, when it seems that the gates of hell themselves are being opened against us under the direction of one accused of crimes, such places are no less than an oasis, and an ecosystem in itself.
May we always have Basta.
Besta, Hashomer 4, Tel Aviv, 03-5169234
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