Benvenuto, Don Camillo
The Jaffa, a Luxury Collection Hotel, is mint skill nearby a pier of Jaffa, though it already has had a prolonged pre-history. Originally branded and announced as Tel Aviv’s initial W Hotel, a long-delayed entrance finally took place this summer, after years spent transforming a mid-19th century French sanatorium into a complicated hotel. The outcome is impressive: a hotel’s excellent dining restaurant, Don Camillo, is housed in a overwhelming yard that is one of a many regretful venues in a city by candlelight.
The indoor seating area, meanwhile, with a vaulted ceilings, is appealing in a possess right, and a leather upholstered chairs utterly comfortable. If we do confirm to lay al fresco, it is advisable to ask a pillow for a country wooden chairs.
Don Camillo – whose cuisine is described as New York-style Italian – might have non-stop a doors usually a few months ago, though clearly it has already been discovered. It was midweek when we visited, nonetheless a grill was full, and a throng was about half tourists and half locals.
The candlelight might have indeed been romantic, though it was not utterly adequate to review a menu by. In many places, a ask for some-more light falls on deaf ears; here, to a restaurant’s credit, a waiter brought a unstable flare for a list right away.
While Don Camillo serves no specialty cocktails, a ethanol menu lists a series of a classics. The general booze list, meanwhile, is endless – with some disdainful vintages autocratic 4 figures. The preference of wines accessible by a glass, on a other hand, is rather limited.
The food menu comprises no fewer than 7 sections: Crudi (NIS 66 to NIS 72), Antipasti (NIS 52 to NIS 96), Insalati (NIS 48 to NIS 56), Pasta (NIS 58 to NIS 88), Pesci/Fish (NIS 122 to NIS 210), Carni/Meat (NIS 96 to NIS 156), and Contorni (NIS 28 to NIS 38). Two of a beef and fish dishes are labelled by weight.
The menu notwithstanding, a image during Don Camillo starts with a nominal bread basket containing focaccia, sourdough bread and grissini, along with a portion of Hame’iri cheese and preserved vegetables and olives. The breadsticks were most addictive, and a wait staff was happy to move more.
Our choice from a initial difficulty of 3 faw fish and dual underdone beef dishes was a Tonno Calabrese, slices of crimson red tuna surrounding a little dollop of eggplant cream. The intensely uninformed and dainty fish was extended by a salsa with faintly honeyed overtones, accented with a barest spirit of chili.
Our Antipasto preference was a Polpetti Pomodoro, lamb meatballs served atop a bed of somewhat sharp tomato salsa and underneath a meagre powdering of pecorino cheese. The outcome was like a hybrid of a Middle East and Italy: kebabs in Bolognese sauce.
When it came time for a pasta course, a waiter endorsed a Mezzaluna Neri – handmade black half-moon ravioli pressed with shrimp and soaked in a salsa studded with chopped shrimp. The inlet of a salsa was not specified in a menu, though it incited out to be an artistic cream salsa seasoned with vermouth, tarragon and shallots.
After pity one of any of a initial 3 courses, we were prepared to sequence dual apart categorical courses. We chose a one seafood image in a fish difficulty – a mélange of uninformed shrimp, calamari and mussels that were still sea from a sea. The miscellany was swimming in a batch of tomatoes and spices that was so tasty my messenger asked for a ladle and finished it like it was soup.
The beef difficulty facilities tantalizing lamb, duck and beef options, from that we comparison a rib-eye with Tuscan seasoning. The tender steak, grilled to a ideal medium, was served sliced off-thebone with half a tuber of roasted garlic, and was estimable of a excellent steakhouse.
Our dual side dishes (Contorni) were a asparagus and a mushrooms. The former consisted of 6 superb stalks of grilled al dente asparagus, while a latter was a inexhaustible image of garlicky assorted mushrooms. The Don Camillo menu as a whole is a bit severe for vegetarians, though we brave contend that these dual extraordinary dishes, along with a salad and a delicately selected pasta, could consecrate a gratifying image for any vegetarian.
Finally, there is a apart dessert menu itemizing 6 choices (NIS 44 to NIS 54). Our waiter did not demur to suggest a cheesecake with Jaffa orange and graham crust, while a manager insisted we try a Banana-Coconut Fantasia – a banana separate with 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream and toppings of toffee syrup, pineapple and coconut chips that were spooned out ceremoniously during a table. This honeyed spectacular tasted as deliciously decadent as it looked.
The author was a guest of a restaurant.
Don Camilo during The Jaffa Hotel
Not kosher
Yefet St. 36, Jaffa
Tel. (03) 504-2000
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