ISRAEL : Spring Menu at Pronto Tel Aviv
My favorite season out of all four is definitely spring.
Such a short and misleading season, especially here in Israel, which makes me appreciate and take advantage of every second of it, before it slips away into the boiling and long summer that characterizes our tiny country.
If there’s something that makes me love this season even more, it’s the special raw materials it brings into our kitchen.
So when I was invited along with Daniel to try the new spring menu concocted by Pronto’s chef, David Frenkel, I didn’t think twice…
Pronto is a restaurant I know very well because of their amazing lunch menus, so there was no way we were going to miss their spring menu – seasonal raw materials combined with the Chef’s creativity must be a real desire for your palate.
We arrived at Pronto one afternoon in the middle of all of the wedding arrangements – including a flight from Eilat to tel-Aviv, running around stores and before my bachelorette party with all of my amazing friends that night – so this meal was really a quiet break from all of the chaos that really characterizes the days before a wedding.
So before we even started looking at the food, we decided to do what was required and ordered cocktails – Daniel ordered the Mojito Bianco {47 NIS}, a classic, and I chose the Amaro Italiano {47 NIS} which was very special and delicious in my opinion {Imperial-style cocktail ?}, though Daniel didn’t like it that much.
The new spring menu is built just like the restaurant’s classic menu and is divided into three categories: appetizers, pasta and fish and meat. Each category has 3-4 dishes that makes the ordering process quite difficult, but after consulting with the waitress, we finally made our decision and the dishes started flowing to our table.
Appetizers
We started our spring meal like every good Italian meal should start – olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a basket of homemade bread {22 NIS}, including white bread, sourdough and of course a hot focaccia with a lot of olive oil on top.
Along with the bread, they served olives and arugula aioli with a delicate and excellent taste.
If you follow my blog, you probably know that I love raw fish, so the appetizer that popped out at me was the Yellowtail tartare {68 NIS}, which they switched to Mackerel that day.
This beautiful fish dish was served with tomato seeds, brined cucumbers, citrus purée and pickled green garlic.
When it comes to a raw fish dish, it doesn’t take much to please me – as long as the fish is super fresh and the rest of the flavors in the dish don’t overpower the taste of the fish, I’m satisfied. In this case, the dish was definitely special and fresh, which wasn’t only delicious but was a sight to behold.
Beef tartare always seemed a bit too much to me, even though I always order my steaks on the rare side. Recently Daniel, who’s responsible among other things to convince me to taste new flavors {hey, thanks to him I started eating fish when I was 21! Raw fish, too!}, was drawn into the niche of raw beef.
So you could imagine how happy he was to see the Beef Tartare on the spring menu {76 NIS}.
But what they served was very different from any other beef tartare we ever had – although the dish was made up of fresh meat and an egg yolk like the classic version, this dish’s creativity overcomes the classic version and creates an entirely different range of flavors than we had in the past.
The meat itself is served with anchovy stock and fried garlic, that adds a twist to the clean and classic taste of the meat, and you could define all of the dish’s toppings in one word – “wow”.
Two egg yolks, which look like dried apricots, lightly coated with crispy quinoa, which adds a game of textures to the dish, and tomato molasses twills.
In my opinion, what was so great about this dish were the egg yolks, which didn’t leave the eggy aftertaste that usually bothers me a bit.
Main Dishes
Although I’m not a big fan of white meat, I took a chance with the main course and went with the waitress’s recommendation who praised the pork cheek tortellini {117 NIS}.
I rarely enjoy the main course more than the appetizers, especially when the appetizers are so great, but this tortellini dish had such a dreamy taste – the texture of the handmade pasta, the tender and pleasant meat filling, and especially the sauce that was made from different elements {eggplant cream, red chilli, bok choy, asparagus and scallop fries}, which created an amazing taste.
This dish was the embodiment of spring in a plate – both in taste and visually ?
Daniel ordered the lamb sirloin {185 NIS} – 4 slices of lamb, placed on purple cabbage cream, grilled lettuce and Jerusalem artichokes.
This was definitely a delicious dish, especially the special elements that surrounded the meat, but terms of VFM {value for money}, it’s not a dish I would recommend – we expected to get more {especially in terms of size} from the most expensive dish on the menu, and we ended up enjoying the tortellini dish much more…
And then they served the desserts …
Before dessert we decided to let our hardworking stomachs rest a bit – Daniel ordered a macchiato and I got herbal tea.
{Pay attention to the classy way they served it! ???}
Saying that the desserts at Pronto aren’t ordinary is really an understatement…
I think the style of the desserts served at Pronto are the closest to the desserts we ate at ONYX {a Michelin star restaurant in Budapest} – Gourmet par excellence.
The first one was the Dolce Velrona Semifreddo {48 NIS} – we got a nice sized portion of light and delicious semifreddo {Italian for semi-cold}, which melts in your mouth, and was served on whole rye streusel, which was a bit salty and was a great contrast to the semifreddo.
The only problem with this dessert was the grappa toffee sauce – it was extremely salty and made us skip eating half of the dish. I doubt this dessert is supposed to have such a dominant salty taste, but it was intentional, then you could totally skip this dessert in my opinion… and it’s a shame because the rest of the ingredients are absolutely excellent.
The second dessert we ordered was the maple cake {48 NIS}, which wasn’t a regular tasty homemade maple cake – it was served with smoked pecan, sweet corn ice cream and whiskey foam.
There’s nothing banal about this dessert – it was hard for us to decide whether we liked it or not from the first two bites… but when you take a bite that combines all of the flavors, you discover a very interesting dessert that you just can’t stop eating, but doesn’t leave you feeling nauseous at the end of it {like many desserts do..}.
Final last words
Pronto is definitely more than a classic Italian restaurant, and exactly like their regular menu, their seasonal spring menu is also abundant with creativity and when looking at the customer’s full experience, includes excellent tastes and impeccable visual aesthetics.
This restaurant isn’t cheap at all, but there’s a good reason – it’s not a regular Italian restaurant, but a high-standard gourmet restaurant – the atmosphere, the service, raw materials and creative dishes give a great value for money {with a small exception of the sirloin lamb}.
So if you’re planning a trip to Israel and time soon – book a table in advance 😉
