July 2010
The Olive Leaf is the elegant
restaurant in the Sheraton Tel-Aviv and Tower Hotel. This is a marvelous upscale dining experience where you will enjoy a delightful ambiance, professional service and delicious food.
The Olive Leaf is a Mediterranean
style restaurant. The decor and the menu reflect the colors of the sea and the foods of Israel. The rich blue sea color, seen through the large windows at one end of the room, is the  dominant color of the restaurant. This is offset by muted shades of olive green, the namesake of the restaurant.
Beautiful Middle Eastern olive wood and colorful porcelain tiles
add to the rich environment.
We have had the pleasure of dining at the Olive Leaf restaurant in the past,
There is no limit to the number of times that you can revisit this restaurant because they change the menu to suit the season and they always have something clever to enjoy We revisited this restaurant recently to try their new summer menu and we are pleased to report that this restaurant just gets better with time. Yaron, the new hotel Food and Beverage manager is making his mark.
The Olive Leaf caters both to guests of the hotel and to outside diners. With its international clientele, the menu is presented in both Hebrew and error-free English.
The dining room is luscious and inviting, with its crispy white napkins and table cloths, The spacious dining table, the pleasant spacing between tables, all make for a comfortable and gracious dining experience.
The servers were very helpful guiding us through the menu and when we made our choices a bread basket with two types of bread, garlic dip, pesto dip and olives was brought to our table.
The chef then sent us an amuse bouche
- a beautifully sculpted bite-sized hors d'œuvre pastry cone filled with shwarma and beetroot. This is a very charming tradition of upmarket restaurants, and this hors d'oeuvre was a nice touch of the Middle East.
At the suggestion of our waitress, I selected the Health Salad as a starter. This is new on the summer menu, and a big hit, we were told, with the diners. No surprise. This mound of shredded salad was delicious and refreshing. It had the color of the beetroot and the sweet taste of the shredded apple, celery, walnuts, vinaigrette and date honey. This is a light and lovely starter.
Nothing light and lovely for my companion. He went for the exotic starter: the foie gras with breast of duck. This dish consists of two medallions of foie gras (goose liver) seared on the outside and loose on the inside, on a sauce of curry, garnished with greenery. It came with two bread sticks ( I preferred the olive bread from the start of the meal). The curry in this dish took a bit of getting used to, Ground sea salt balanced out the flavors and in no time he was having a wonderful time and licking his lips. We started on the right foot.
 In recent years Gnocchi has become a popular menu item at both dairy and meat restaurants. Gnocchi can be prepared in a wide variety of ways. As an eLuna restaurant writer I am studying the gnocchi presentations at the different eLuna restaurants. At Olive Leaf the Gnocchi pieces are breaded, and then served in curry and coconut milk. This was a very middle-eastern approach to this Italian food.
For my main course I chose the sea bream served with grilled vegetable skewers. After the bread, the amuse bouche, and the starter, I was glad that the size of this dish was proportional. The fish was served in an oblong plate, very refreshing and different from my companion's meal. The fish was very well prepared, the vegetables were excellent and the presentation was outstanding.
My companion chose the Mallard breast (mullard in Israel, otherwise duck) for his main course. This was a moderately priced (NIS 70) dish of six short, thick slices of duck breast on a layer of gravy. The meat is pan fried to medium well done, a process that keeps it soft and tasty, especially with the gravy and a touch of added sea salt and ground pepper. The Mallard was accompanied by a portion of apple chutney for sweetness, and a slice of a loaf made of layered potato slices, crispy on the outside and garnished with the signature greens. I enjoyed my exotic adventure with the duck. Note that Duck is a fatty meat, so be prepared. If you prefer leaner cuts choose the filet steak.
There is a fine selection of desserts. We chose the banana tart with fresh sliced bananas, one of the pastry chef's deserts. This dessert was spears of bananas on a pastry base for NIS 35. This was a very sweet way to finish our dining experience with coffee or tea.
summer salad:nis 40. Sea Bream: nis 75, Mullard: nis 70, Dessert: nis 35.
The restaurant has a private room for up to 24 people .
Getting There: The Sheraton Tel-Aviv is just at the traffic circle on Hayarkon Street. The entrance
to the underground parking lot is from the rear of the hotel, which
is especially convenient if you come from the north.
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