Yuval Ben Neria gained exposure, viewers gained a glimpse.

But who will pay the bill?

Caviar without an invoice, a prison mistake and a cruel critique from the father: the docu on opening a restaurant provided quite a few interesting moments, as well as some question marks

Yaniv Granot

26/05/2022

Thursday, May 26, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

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Yuval Ben Neria, from "The Best Restaurant in Israel", Yes Doku (courtesy of yes Doku)

The best TV review column of the past year - Outside the Worlds Fellow Salons of course - was written by one, Karim Abdul Jaber.

The moving basketball myth hesitated, hesitated, struggled and thrilled, until finally having to address more than just "I only saw half an episode and stopped. It's ridiculous. I do not want to talk about it" to "Winning Time", the series that HBO picked up on the Los Angeles show years Les Lakers.

Karim disassembled into factors, then into factors-factors, then into micro-factors, everything bad in the series, and came out with one conclusion, which naturally made its way to the headline.

"She's not only consciously lying," he tossed his famous Skyhawk, "but is also sinning in something far more serious - she's making you sad with boredom."

The long column is brilliantly verbal and well-constructed arguments and blows, but collapses into itself in the very last sentence, which was added only after the original text was published, in what is probably Karim's worst buzzer shot since he even went around if anyone called Lou Elsindor.

"Do you want to see the truth? What really happened to us there?", He teases, "so go watch the excellent docu 'They Call Me Magic' on Apple TV +."

In other words: one of the five greatest basketball players in history and one of the most honed cultural critics in the United States today is annoyed that an entertainment series does not show the "truth" and yawns you to death, then ends with a recommendation to watch the most engineered product - "Docu" Synthetics that came out of Hollywood in the last jubilee - Magic Johnson.

Seriously, go to his Twitter account, take ten tweets and try to guess if it's true or if Pat Riley's captain has become Captain Obeis since retiring.

Oh, and if you're already into research, read what Ilan Kaprov thought about the series.

preferable.

Almost perfect

When Yuval Ben Neria decides to release

To the full article

Sorry?

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

In the middle of this scale, one end of which is independent documentary making and the opposite end of which includes a remade product, an entire docu-like industry has sprung up in recent years.

The reasons for this are many, and include, among other things, a celebrity understanding that the narrative is controllable, the shift of centers of power towards the surveyed side and the dramatic development of output points that neutralize the need to talk to traditional factors such as journalists.

In a nutshell - why would I cooperate with anyone without controlling how this thing would turn out in the end?

The products, accordingly, are almost universally worthless, and are but another tier in the industry that markets the talent.

This was also my initial and neutral approach when I opened "The Best Restaurant in Israel" (and yes, the name helped nothing but an almost acrobatic eye roll), Talia Inbar's docu that accompanied for about two years Chef Yuval Ben Neria and the birth of his "a" restaurant ( yes docu).

Almost an hour later, I can say that this is of course neither "Winning Time" nor a completely objective documentation, but neither is "They Call Me Magic".

In many of his moments, he is placed at exactly the ideal television point (in terms of the viewer and also, presumably, in terms of the creator) where the magician decides to reveal some of his secrets, and then regrets a bit.

These are also, presumably, the moments that scatter a bit of magic in the air.

Three points, and fill in the blanks.

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

Nearly a decade since the opening of Taizo, Ben Neria's culinary talent (i.e., except for petty and insignificant food critics, and perhaps also, here and there, less petty and more significant food critics), and his position at the top of local foodies, seems indisputable.

This is an accepted bronze insight, but also one that is based on an Israeli essay that points with its feet and blows up its order list in Taizo, and also in a.

And this is also one of Inbar's mooring points, which drains entirely into the moment when Ben Neria asks "Why did I need this?".

He answers immediately, by the way - plowing an entire field of clichés about challenge and mountains and missions and "that's me" - instead of letting the question seep in, leaving the doubt hanging in the air for a few more seconds.

These are also the seconds when you feel like shouting at the screen, and at the chef himself, that this is not a psychotechnical test, and that answers should not be marked by force.

On the contrary.

Let viewers empathize with questions that are unlikely to come close to their lives, and may inject some emotion into this whole business.

Cardigan required.

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

The lack of emotion obscures the "best restaurant in Israel" from the opening subtitles until Kalmari left and returned to the kitchen (we'll get to that later).

Inbar managed to squeeze out some deep sentences about the end of Ben Neria's marriage and documented a spotty breakup of Eleanor Cohen, the group's vice president, but the temperature controlling this space requires a cardigan, and a chef's children's appearance did not help warm him up. Others, but I

am

convinced that "seeing the restaurant in the evening" is not the favorite attraction for children at this age).

That the floor of the editing room will not be slippery with tears,

but that's exactly the point - if not emotion, then what?

Mistake of a prison.

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

Inbar gained a film, Ben Neria gained exposure and recognition, and viewers gained a glimpse.

But who pays the bill?

The camera accompanies one of the most perfectionist chefs in Israel, enters the busiest and busiest kitchens here, and catches the cigarette of the people who absorb the sparks of this fusion every day.

She also pauses for a second before things are really said, censors herself, quickly lowers the volume, and cuts into another situation that is also constructed in the Torah, landing a climax that is sometimes artificial, and sometimes just too early.

So we understood, "Yuval Ben Neria" three points, "Yuval is Yuval", "Is it easy" a question mark raising eyebrows opening pupils, but we actually did not understand.

That is, whoever is immersed in these food worlds probably knows how to fill in cognitive gaps on his own, and everyone else - in a rough estimate, 99% of potential viewers - what about them?

Are they expected to read the lips of Jennifer Ferguson, a responsible chef in a group who leaned over to a colleague to whisper something just as the sound was dying?

Did Ben Neria and his representatives have influence, editorial intervention or just a certain percentage of control over the final product?

Probably so, and one does not have to be utterly cynical to go in that direction.

Such products are not born out of thin air, and require a reasonable compromise from all parties involved.

In the ideal relationship, Inbar gained a movie, Ben Neria gained exposure and recognition, and viewers gained a glimpse.

But who pays the bill?

The ritual is evident.

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

What started as an internal joke in the kitchen, at the friend's expense of course, can not end like this

The most beautiful moments in the film, and the most interesting for my taste, take place on the eve of the launch of "a", a meal designed to test the restaurant's fitness with the help of a clientele traditionally composed of friends and family.

Amber takes advantage of the situation to escape a bit from Ben Neria, and catch him from a distance as he communicates with the staff, with his parents ("Tell you I enjoy them coming to eat? Not sure"), and also with himself.

This perspective exposes the chef almost completely, unpacking him from his armor, and documenting him as he really is.

She also spawned the wonderful frame in which he peeks from the checkerboard position toward the diners, and toward his parents.

It is doubtful if he needs credentials at this stage of his life, but the camera does not lie.

This move by Inbar leads to a ripping input from the mother ("very special food", a title that has already become a myth in many homes where it is not customary to pass a taste-based critique that might hurt God forbid), and a huge sequence starring the father. Eliminating Pavlovian, but a few seconds later he goes back into the kitchen and asks one of the cooks to let him "taste the tuna."

Tzachi Moskowitz, another guest from Table 112, made a prison mistake and returned a squid dish to the kitchen.

He is immediately tagged as the only one who returned a dish at the same running meal, but what started as an internal joke in the kitchen, at his expense of course, could not end that way.

Ben Neria, proud and upright even at the cost of a confrontation on one of the few evenings in his professional life where one hole in the apron can be released, goes to "returns" and refuses to release.

The hug, and the insult.

These two moments - with the parents and the boyfriend, but mostly between Ben Neria and the place - had to be the materials from which the entire film is made.

Technology exists.

A place for guessing.

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

Ben Neria does not know how to accept compliments, which is an almost Japanese wording in his minimalism.

Ben Neria also does not know how to give compliments

Ben Neria does not know how to accept compliments, which is an almost Japanese wording in his minimalism.

A particularly caring scene captures him - physically, while evading - in a conversation with Uri, one of the guards in the lobby of the Levinstein Towers where Taizo is located.

Uri talks about the chef's "modesty" and carries a public prayer "Let him go," but Ben Neria is already on the move, leaving Uri with hope, and with an urgent need to improve his ability to read the room.

Clearly this is not the result of bad intentions, but a clear sense of discomfort.

So too the avoidance of going out to customers who want to thank him, which gives rise to a convoluted explanation of the need to focus on food, and ends, of course, with a sting to chefs who do agree to selfies.

Ben Neria also does not know how to give compliments.

"Champions. He did not say that, but I say," Cohen thanks the kitchen staff at the height of the running meal.

The response of the latter, excellent professionals who will lead their own restaurants within a few years, is not documented, but the ritual is evident.

"Go to work," Ben Neria tells them as he raises his glass before the restaurant officially opens.

"Go to work," he tells them in the middle of the chaser of the end of the first service.

There were concrete trucks at the construction site of the Sharona Tower with less cargo and more lightness.

for life!

From "The best restaurant in Israel" (Photo: Walla !, screenshot)

Ben Neria has set a precedent here, with non-obvious exposure, and a camera that is not connected by direct communication cable to prime-time, or to a spice company pushing marketing content down its throat.

Fascinating to think about colleagues who have seen and will want to too

The only pride of the "Ben Neria team" is not Pike, and his friends do not do a show for Inbar's camera.

They are pleased, smiling and scattering somewhat arrogant statements into the air.

"There is no such place anymore", and also "only here", "there was no such thing in Israel", and also "we do everything differently here", and more and more and more.

The thing is, they're wrong.

"a" is huge, invested and foreign, but it is not the only one in the country that speaks of fermentation, and the millions required to establish it broke a record that has been broken several times since. This is the nature of the world, and this is the necessity of the Israeli restaurant world. , Its people know, waiting for too long a story on chairs from China, and an entrance sign held in isolatorband.

Even as docu-food, about opening a restaurant, Yes' precedents are a bit odd, especially if you remember the old "restaurant opener" that accompanied chef Nitzan Raz and his "UNO" establishment more than a decade ago.

True, it was a slightly different product, but that does not mean that you can rewrite historical menus just like that.

Especially if they were called fucking "open a restaurant".

Either way, Ben Neria nonetheless set a precedent here, with a non-obvious exposure, and a camera not tied to a direct-to-prime-time communications cable, or to a spice company pushing marketing content down its throat.

Fascinating to think about colleagues who have seen and will want to too.

Certain moments of Ben Neria, on the stairs with the carpenter coming to install the children's beds in the new apartment, for example, or in his countless "felt" in the elevator and the blue Volvo and at the end of the day in front of the towers, help the viewer understand his character a little better. When he does not do "it", and my intelligent guess is maybe intelligent, but he is still just a guess).

Other moments, with the sommelier letting him taste a two-year-old terroir wine, or a local caviar tasting ("this is what it looks like when he arrives without an invoice") make it very clear what motivates him, and what drives him crazy.

Both good and bad.

The result of everything - if you are not Tzachi Moskowitz of course - is a perfect bite of food, one of the best you can find in Israel.

Talia Inbar looked him in the eyes, and dared to add some salt to him.

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• Yuval Ben Neria

• Taizo