My vegan friend Estelle is upset with me that my last few reviews have been of meat restaurants with few, if any, vegan options. So, this one’s for you, Estelle.
The Inbal Hotel has become known for its annual soup festival every winter, offering a changing roster of at least five different soups. Now it’s trying something else, a focaccia and antipasti festival for NIS 95 (half-price for kids under eight).
A word about the setting – the seating is outside in the courtyard of the hotel, and the cool evening air is especially pleasant. As soon as you sit down, you feel relaxed and far away from the ever-worsening traffic jams in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem's Inbal: Sit down, relax and enjoy the focaccia
The NIS 95 includes all the focaccia, breads and baked goods you can eat, as well as all the antipasti you want. What’s not included are drinks, desserts and coffee.
The hotel has purchased a new free-standing white-tiled tabun oven for the festival, and the young chef manning the tabun, Yusuf, knows his stuff. There were at least 20 different types of focaccia and other baked dough creations, which included some of the best things we tasted during the evening. Inside is an antipasti and soup bar with a salad and several dips for the bread.
We began our meal with a drink. My son, who recently turned 18, ordered a mojito (NIS 45) and I ordered a glass of white wine (NIS 32). The wine was Aviv, an easy-drinking wine from Galil Vineyards that went well with the food. It was served in a small wineglass and filled only about a quarter of the glass. I would have liked a larger glass for that money.
“Sometimes mojitos are watered down, or you can’t taste the alcohol at all. But this one is really good.”
Mishy
“Sometimes mojitos are watered down, or you can’t taste the alcohol at all,” commented my son Mishy, based on his vast drinking experience. “But this one is really good.”
I took a sip and he was actually right. My wine was a nice blend of sauvignon blanc and Sémillon, but the glass was empty far too quickly.
I had planned to start with the antipasti and fill up on vegetables, therefore eating less of the carb-heavy focaccia and pastries. The fact that that didn’t happen is really your fault, my dear readers, as I felt a duty to first check out the snazzy new tabun they brought for the festival.
While there I picked up a small pastry with sesame seeds stuffed with mozzarella cheese, and another triangle-shaped pastry with egg and chili flakes. It had cooled to room temperature, so Yusuf put it in the tabun to warm up a little. There were at least eight types of focaccia on offer, and Yusuf said I could also put in a personal order. I tried a mushroom and zucchini focaccia that was delicious.
Chef Tal Bardugo said the dough is made the Italian way, even using flour imported from Italy. It rises twice, for a total of 48 hours, and has an especially stretchy, elastic quality.
We next visited the antipasti buffet inside, which had a few surprises. There were all of the expected vegetables, including regular and shimeji mushrooms, which I love, sweet potatoes, and a very good, thinly sliced beet and blue-cheese dish. The only salad was a bowl of quinoa, lentils and onions, which I skipped because I don’t like raw red onions. My son said it was very good.
There was one soup, minestrone, which was disappointingly bland. It is ironic, as the Inbal offers a soup festival every winter that is very popular, with five different kinds of soups. In addition to a better soup, I would have liked to see at least one more leafy green salad on offer. At the end of the table were homemade jams, which also didn’t seem to go with the theme.
What did people think of the Focaccia Festival?
I ASKED several diners what they thought of the festival.
“We put off coming, because I couldn’t really see spending NIS 100 on focaccia. But it’s my mother-in-law’s birthday, and she loves bread, and I think for an occasion it’s worth trying.”
Sarah Shamir
“We put off coming, because I couldn’t really see spending NIS 100 on focaccia,” Sarah Shamir said. “But it’s my mother-in-law’s birthday, and she loves bread, and I think for an occasion it’s worth trying.”
She was also pleased that they didn’t charge her for her six-year-old son, Tani, who ate only breadsticks and shimeji mushrooms.
But four other women, who came from Modi’in for a girls’ night out, said they thought the meal was excellent value for the money.
“It’s a hotel and the setting is beautiful,” said Mali Rapaporte, who said she always comes with these same friends for the soup festival in the winter. “The food is great, and we are very pleased with it.”
It got me thinking about the concept of value for money and how it is so individual. What one person thinks of as overpriced, another sees as a bargain.
Desserts are not included, but this is a dairy restaurant, so how could we say no to its generous offer? My son had a delicious slice of New York-style cheesecake, and I had a fresh fruit tart.
We then rolled out of the restaurant and headed home, as I began to calculate just how many hours of tortuous exercise with Nurit I will need to work off the calories I had just happily inhaled.
Focaccia FestivalInbal HotelHours: Sunday-Thursday, 5 p.m.-10 p.m.Kashrut: Jerusalem Rabbinate
The writer was a guest of the restaurant.