When it opened nearly two years ago, Baraka featured something called "modern Moroccan cuisine." The dishes were pleasant enough, but not particularly modern and they had relatively little to do with Morocco. Until recently, the pleasures of the place derived from the atmosphere, for it was difficult not to be charmed by the arabesque arches, the inviting garden, the abundance of copper and wrought iron fixtures and a black obelisk in the center of the dining area that called to mind Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."
After several chef changes, the restaurant has now settled into a less pretentious style of cuisine. The charm of the setting remains and the waiters still wear galabias but gone are the tagines, couscous, stuffed figs, grilled merguez sausages and other pretensions of Moroccan food. In their place are creative and often playful French-Mediterranean dishes.
As we perused the menu we were served a complimentary house cocktail of anise, red grapefruit and a hint of mint, and a miniature portion of a lightly-chilled gazpacho of creamed eggplant. The combination of flavors in the cocktail and the gazpacho was refreshing. Because chef Moshe Aviv (who has been honing his skills here for nearly six months) is well-known for his first courses, we continued with a broad sampling of those:
An eggplant carpaccio - made by grilling and then splitting open a small eggplant, sprinkling with shavings of well-aged Parmesan and a few drops of herbed olive oil - had just the right combination of bitter and salty flavors, and a ceviche of thin, perfectly fresh slices of grouper, with pickled lemon and coarse salt, left a welcome feeling of delicate sourness on the palate. In another dish, champignon mushrooms fried in butter were treated to a rich brown sauce and were accompanied by a cigar-like pastry filled with piping hot goat's cheese.
By now it was becoming apparent that part of the chef's creativity involved a continuing set of complementing and contrasting flavors and textures. To this point I was delighted.
We continued with a dish of fried calamari and chilled white beans, tossed in a lemony sauce, a shwarma of mutton served with thick, grainy home-made hummus, green tehina and a small salad, and a small sampling of a fish soup, which was thick with fish and vegetables.
My main course was lamb chops served on a stew that included, among other things, chick peas, tomatoes and onions, all rich with the flavors of tarragon and other Mediterranean herbs. The chops had been cooked medium-rare as requested and had just enough of their rim of fat left intact to guarantee a rich flavor.
The vegetable "stew", somewhere between a Romanian ghivetch and a French ratatouille, was perfect. My companion chose fillets of goatfish. What made the dish exquisite were finely-chopped Portobello mushrooms, that topped the fillets. A passionflower butter sauce highlighted the flavors of the dish.
The dessert we shared was more amusing than successful, for although the pastry filled with thick tehina and its accompanying fig sauce were tasty, it was so rich that a single bite sufficed.
The service is friendly, but not overly personal and remarkably responsive, even the owner making certain, in an unobtrusive way, that all is well at each table. If there is a problem here it is that the prices are somewhat high for food best categorized as pleasant. Based on any two of the first courses we tried, main courses, one shared dessert, and espresso, the bill for two will come to about NIS 340. Although there is a small but good wine list, that will bring the bill to at least NIS 500.
We opted for two bottles of Leffe beer, one Blonde and the other Brune, asking the waiter to mix them in our glasses so that the lighter and heavier beers would blend together.
Baraka: Ahad Haam 22. Open daily 7 P.M-1 A.M. Saturday from noon for lunch. Tel. 03 5172828.
Tasting menu at the Hilton
Golan Aladjem of the Hilton Hotel's Ha Melech Shlomo restaurant is one of the very few hotel-based chefs in Israel that I have come to rely on over the years for exciting dining, and his recently introduced tasting menu is no exception to that rule. Start off with the amuse bouche ceviche of sea bass marinated in vodka. Full of rich flavor, complemented by a hint of horseradish sauce, this tiny mouthful is a treat.
Go on to the veal carpaccio served with an avocado and tomato-based guacamole blended with a coriander and pesto sauce. To add to the Mexican feel, a crisp corn tortilla chip is served with the dish. As in all degustation meals, the courses are intentionally small to allow one to continue without feeling overly full. The next mini-offering is roasted quail breast served with a delicate shallot confit and black currant sauce.
As a main course my companion opted for red snapper. Made by searing the fillet in a hot skillet, served with couscous, steamed chard and spooned over lightly with a garlic-rich aioli sauce, whose flavors had been heightened by the use of saffron, the dish was an unmitigated delight. My own dish, grilled fillet of beef, was not up to the rest of the meal because, although the confit of root vegetables and celery and caraway sauce tried hard, the meat was inescapably koshered, too salty, somewhat dry and on the wrong side of medium-rare.
Dessert, a pastry of balsamic flavored strawberries, was excellent, in spite of the parve coconut ice cream it came with.
This dinner offering will cost most diners NIS 450 per couple plus wine. The meal is rewarding, the ambience is very pleasant and the service excellent. In spite of this, however, I can not help think these prices are not too attractive in days when restaurants all over the country are in the doldrums.
Ha Melech Shlomo, in the Tel Aviv Hilton. Open Sunday-Thursday 17 P.M-10 P.M. Tel: 03 5202023. Kosher.
