Chef Avi Conforti and partners Anat Laufer and Yael Uri held a press conference on Tuesday at the Asian luxury restaurant Topolopompo, in which they apologized for the sanitary incident that occurred last month. At the same time, they announced the launch of a new menu in the restaurant, which will integrate with the existing one.
Chef Conforti, who has not appeared in front of media outlets in the past ten years, opened up and said: "It is important for me to say first of all that I apologize from the bottom of my heart and regret those customers who ate and felt bad. This is not something to be taken for granted. Things shouldn't happen but they did." He added: "The last few weeks have been the hardest of my life. For me, cooking and creating fine dishes for diners is the essence and mission of my life. All deficiencies were corrected in accordance with the Health Ministry report." Conforti further explained: "We carried out comprehensive streamlining processes in all sectors of the restaurant and in the kitchen in particular."
Chef Avi Conforti and partners Anat Laufer and Yael Ori at the press conference,
16 people, including two pregnant women, suffered from intestinal disease after testifying that they ate at a restaurant in Tel Aviv. The business was closed by consent until the deficiencies were corrected and the Ministry of Health conducted sanitary inspections there. Since the last audit found that the deficiencies had been addressed, the restaurant was allowed to resume operations.
Asked whether the source of the incident was known, Conforti replied: "We are preparing everything from scratch. The Ministry of Health found something in a vegetable salad and a dish of fish tartare."
He also explained: "We grow our vegetables or grow them for us, our own people. We are partners in a fishing boat. We strive to offer the best product we can day after day, year after year. Topolopompo is 10 years old, Zefra is 15 years old and Chimichanga is 12 years old. When I started I was much younger and Yael and Anat were always with me. In many ways it's kind of a family restaurant even though we don't look like it."
Baby Taco Byte Chop Sashimi from the new menu,
So how does such a thing happen?
"It can happen from anything. It could be a cook touching something or a knife that fell." According to Conforti, after receiving the Ministry of Health's report and following the incident, not only was all food destroyed and rebought, new engines with control for refrigerators were also purchased, a new and strict protocol for controlling product dates was created, a sanitary technician now comes to the restaurant on a daily basis and an expert whose job is to perform food samples once a month.
The restaurant's new summer menu is based on signature dishes and new dishes from 26 years of hospitality at Chef Avi Conforti's restaurants: Chimchanga, Zefra and Topolopompo. "The sparkle in my eyes returned. I want to be excited," the chef said as he served the dishes, explaining: "Food is my personal journey in life. Through food, I touch people in an individual way that evokes experiences and emotions. That's why we thought about time travel through our three restaurants."
Topolopompo launches new menu,
As part of the new menu, alongside a glass of lemon margarita and frozen lime, you can enjoy dishes such as: "Shiso Toro" of Atlantic salmon, barletta onions, unripe tangerine miso, Japanese chili, crushed seaweed, white and black sesame seeds; a bibi-bate taco dish of chop sashimi, smoke and white horseradish; from her like crispy Yamadhagishki cookies paired with salmon sakura and salmon shaoxing, mahdan trout, togarashi cream and fermented sapiuk; And on and on.
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