The house on Brenner Street

Four different types of café, housed in a preserved building from the 1940s on Brenner Street, offer four very different eating adventures. The basic idea was to bring together examples of existing chains in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Some, like the Iceberg Ice Cream Parlor and Rubin’s Meat Sandwich Bar, are being offered in a kosher format for the first time. Another café, not yet open, will sell Jem’s beer, while the largest restaurant in the complex is the Espresso-Bar, which offers light dairy meals, including some fish and pasta dishes.

The four café are spread over a dunam of land in the heart of Ra’anana, with plenty of parking available on the adjacent streets. Each establishment will have sidewalk seating on the quiet street, as well as plenty of room in the spacious interiors for the colder evenings.

The project is the brainchild of entrepreneur Itsik Fleisher (of Fabian fame), and the management company taking care of the business is the Guy Yitshaki Company. Michal Fisher, the marketing manager of the project, explains that the vision behind 6 Brenner Street is to give an answer to urban leisure time with well-known and leading brands but in a homey environment. Rather than going to eat in a mall, customers can find what they are looking for in the middle of a town, all under one roof. The emphasis is on having a fun night out.

I recently sampled a meal at the Espresso-Bar and was more than impressed with the innovative cuisine and excellent service. The name seemed to conjure up little more than a coffee bar, but in fact the menu is quite extensive, and very substantial dishes are on offer.

The owners, the two Tizabi brothers of Persian extraction, told me that for 10 years they had dreamt of opening a restaurant together and from the age of 18 had worked their way up, doing all the different jobs connected to the catering business – kitchen work, barmen, waiters – until they felt they had learnt everything they needed to know to open their business.

When we arrived to sample the food, the place had been open only two weeks, and they had quickly put the roof on the large dining room just before the first rains fell. It was a balmy autumn evening, with many diners sitting out on the sidewalk; but to get a better picture of what was going on, we opted to sit inside.

For a starter, I chose the mushrooms in white wine served with crusty but light whole wheat baguette.(NIS 29) This was quite mouth-wateringly delicious, tasting of butter, cream and a hint of wine with overtones of garlic and oregano. My companion had the cream of grilled eggplant, tehina and egg.(NIS 26). It had a very smoky flavor as though the aubergine had been toasted on an open fire. Besides being very tasty, it felt healthy.

There are two fish dishes on the menu, but as the sea bass was not available, the only other choice was salmon fillet, served on beetroot with goat’s yogurt (NIS 68). The fish was baked nicely without being overdone and was served on a mix of slightly pickled diced beetroot and arugula, with a garlic and lemon dressing and a base of yogurt.

For my main course, I chose the root and tofu salad (NIS 42), a vegetarian option with a sweet and spicy dressing that enlivened the dish considerably. The accompanying salad, besides the mixed lettuce, contained beet, kohlrabi and carrot chips, radishes, apple segments and sunflower seeds; and the tofu had been seared to give it flavor. It had the virtue of being healthy, but this was somewhat canceled out by the fried vegetable latkes (NIS 45) that found their way to our table.

The menu also offers a huge selection of pasta, salads, regular and toasted sandwiches.

Breakfast is served all day and comes in a variety that one didn’t know existed. Besides eggs Florentine (made from spinach), they also offer eggs Benedict, which are usually made with unmentionable ingredients but for which they substitute smoked salmon (both NIS 39/49, depending on the size).

They also offer a green breakfast (NIS 54), which includes herb frittata, green tehina, ricotta with pesto and olives; and a white breakfast (NIS 56) with eggs, white cheese and root salad.

Desserts include a sugar-free cheese cake (NIS 32) Belgian waffle (NIS 36) and the alarmingly named “Nemesis” chocolate cake (NIS 34). To round off the meal, we had excellent decaffeinated coffee.

The Tizabi brothers, Liron and Lior, say they want to bring a European atmosphere to Ra’anana.

“It’s a bit of a sleepy town,” they say. “We have to wake it up.”

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.

6 Brenner Street, Ra’anana.
(09) 974-5316
Sunday to Thursday, 9 to midnight Closed Shabbat

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