Touro Tel Aviv Restaurant
July 2015
Tried and true, Touro restaurant in Jerusalem's Mishkenot Shaananim is an eLuna.com favorite. This lovely meat restaurant combines ambience, delicious food and quality service for a perfect dining experience.

The folks from Touro Jerusalem have now opened a branch in Ramat Hachayal, Tel Aviv. Touro Tel Aviv offers many of the same dishes as its Jerusalem big sister, but this restaurant has its own unique personality.

Is Jerusalem restaurants opening a branch in Tel Aviv be a trend?
We hope so.

The name Touro is for Judah Touro, who together with Moshe Montefiore, founded what is now Jerusalem's Mishkenot Shaananim neighborhood, the location of the Jerusalem restaurant. Touro Jerusalem has made quite a name for itself. Together with the shared menu, it was fitting to call the Tel Aviv restaurant by the same name.

Touro Tel Aviv is In the hub of the hopping Ramat Hachayal tech park, This is a spiffy, shiny, modern looking restaurant, with a very "now" Tel Aviv look. A long sparkling bar runs the length of the restaurant, There are comfortable tables and banquette seating opposite the bar. You can view the active kitchen through the picture window outside.

About The Touro Tel Aviv Restaurant Menu

Touro is a chef restaurant. Chef Benny Ashkenazi is both a partner and the restaurant's culinary inspiration. With a staff of professionals, Benny oversees the kitchen at both Touro Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Touro offers upscale Mediterranean cuisine. My companion and I whet our appetites on the house focaccia served with a tomato and an olive dip. The Touro Tel Aviv menu is heavy on the starters. There are three groups of starters, with many choices in each group, Other than the prices that range from NIS 38 - NIS 58, I could not see any clear division of the starters by food type of category. This concept of a wide range of starters changes the focus of the meal. With plenty to choose from, you can enjoy one or two starters and an alcoholic drink, rather than a heavy main course dinner. Or you can have the traditional starter and main course, as we did.

At the chef's suggestion I chose the grilled asparagus as my starter from the NIS 58 group. My companion chose the "roast" from the NIS 46 group.

What's with the asparagus and egg combination?
Some of the best restaurants offer this as a starter and I would like to know where it comes from. (We didn't have that combo in my mother's house.) Whatever, the grilled asparagus on a bed of cauliflower cream served with nearly hard boiled eggs (they call them 6 minute eggs) was delicious. The cauliflower cream gave it the punch.

Would you like a cocktail with that?
The restaurant has an inviting wine and cocktail menu. The cocktail of the day was a delicious rum and fruit drink on ice, with a wedge of orange. When a restaurant has a good bar, don't pass up a cocktail.

eLuna sees a lot of restaurants. At some, as at Touro Tel Aviv, the glassware and the serving pieces are significant and part of the ambiance. Some restaurants present the foods on dishes that reflect the theme of the restaurant. A retro restaurant will serve on glass dishes that you could swear came out of Bubi's kitchen cabinet. Others present their foods on plain white dishes for a stark modern look. Touro Tel Aviv uses an eclectic mix of clever serving pieces that actually become conversation pieces. The Asparagus starter was presented on a heavy dark slate plate. The cocktail that we enjoyed came in an old fashioned pleated glass sugar jar. Who would have remembered the way we once poured sugar, and who would have expected that as a cocktail glass..

My companion's "roast" starter was a plate of thinly sliced sinta roast beef meat sprinkled with a mustard olio and garnished with roquet. Several slices of toasted bruschetta sat decoratively on the plate. The roast beef was perfectly cooked - just a bit pink on the inside, and the flavor with the olio and greens was heavenly. The portion was not small for a starter, but you could only wish for more.

The list of main dishes is modest compared to the starters:: 3 fish dishes, and several meat dishes. For his main dish my companion chose the signature slow cooked short rib casserole (shpondra. also know as assado). This was a nice portion of slow cooked succulent BBQ-flavored meat and served in a complex sauce of rice wine and honey with onions, carrots, and mushrooms. String beans added color and a contrasting crisp texture. Nothing softens meat like slow cooking in a good sauce, and for this dish you hardly needed teeth.

I enjoyed one of the best salmon fillet dishes that I can remember. The fish was perfectly prepared, oven baked and then grilled. The fish was presented on a bed of whipped potatoes and vegetables flavored with caramel. This was a truly delicious dish. Both our main dishes were served in frying pans which, unfortunately were for effect, not for cooking.

We are off sweets for now, but when I asked the waitress what desserts were available, the list was very long. The highlight of the desserts is the Boom Boom chocolate ball dessert, she said. There is also a hot chocolate souffle, mille-feuille, and others, all made in house.

The prices at Touro Tel Aviv are unexpectedly reasonable for this quality restaurant. Take advantage of this before they catch on. A modest meal of a generous starter and an alcoholic drink can come in at under 100 shekels. Most of the meat main courses are under 100 shekels with the exception of the lamb spare ribs at NIS 156.

Etc.,
Reservations are important. Drop-ins may have to wait.
Parking: Street parking is tight. Pay parking underground in the building. Rest rooms are handicapped accessible on ground level.