Way up on the second floor of the Eatalia building are the secret restaurants of Petah Tikva. There is no sign, no website, and nothing to suggest that you are entering one of the finest collection of restaurants in the center of the country.
Eatalia is the big brown building in the BSR complex on Totzeret Ha’aretz Street. The Eatalia complex glorifies Italian cuisine.
We came to Eatalia for the Pescara fish restaurant, one of three restaurants on the second floor of the Eatalia complex. The Joya D’Eatalia restaurant is a casual restaurant for family dining. The La Brace grill restaurant is an Italian fine-dining meat restaurant. The Pescara fish restaurant takes its place somewhere between casual and fine dining.
Fine fish dining in Petah Tikva
Chef Cobi Bachar is the culinary director of the entire Eatalia complex. This man knows fish. He founded the popular Happy Fish restaurant at Jerusalem’s Mamilla Hotel and brings his experience and creative ideas to the Pescara restaurant. Restaurant manager Elliott, proficient in Hebrew and English, showed us the ropes and suggested his favorite dishes.
We started with the jasmine cocktail from the bar, a delicious gin and passiflora-based drink on ice (NIS 48). There is a limited selection of cocktails on the menu, but you don’t need more. We were then served a basket of fresh, warm, soft bread, with a crispy crust, cut in thick pieces, country-style, and served with butter and olives.
In addition to a great selection of fish dishes, there is a menu of pasta dishes. The pasta here is all handmade from scratch, in-house. This includes the gnocchi, the specialty pasta of the restaurant. On this visit, we chose fish dishes for the restaurant’s namesake. A shared starter of fish salad, a basket of bread, and two main fish dishes made a full meal.
My dining companion and I often share one starter, to leave us wanting a main course. The crispy sea bass (levrak) salad starter (NIS 68) was generous enough to share. This was a sprightly salad with leafy basil, mint, and coriander with roasted almonds topped with crusty-coated fish nuggets.
The salad had a sweet-spicy dressing with a kick that you only feel after a few bites. I loved the crispy fish while my companion loved the tangy greens balanced by the dressing.
IF YOU don’t like fish, it is because you never had it prepared well. Firstly, the fish must be fresh. The fish we had at Pescara was in the Mediterranean that morning and on the plate in the evening.
Secondly, the chef has to know how to prepare fish. This takes skill. It is not like meat that you put on the grill and ignite. A good fish dish has to be flavored with the right herbs and spices and cooked for the exact right amount of time.
Our two fish dishes, which were our main courses, both met these criteria. I am partial to fillets because I don’t have to negotiate bones. I chose the sea bass fillet on a cream base (NIS 142). The single fillet was browned on top and served on a delicious creamy sauce.
New dishes are added to the menu periodically. This dish is so new that it does not yet appear on the menu. But since they started serving it, Elliott said, it is his favorite dish. I agree that this was quite a spectacular dish.
What is that cream made of? I wondered. Cauliflower, it turns out, is the secret ingredient.
My companion chose the locus skewer (NIS 126), Elliot’s other favorite dish. One long, impressive skewer of grilled locus cubes was served on a bed of roasted mangold leaves, on a buttery corn cream sauce. The locus was less sweet than my sea bass, but the grilled fish, the roasted mangold, and creamy corn with butter was an agreeable combination. Here, too, the fresh bread was just what we needed to clean the plate.
Dining at Pescara is not cheap but you get what you pay for. A quality fish dish can cost the same or more as a mid-range main dish at a meat restaurant. And so, at Pescara, main fish dishes all come in above NIS 100.
Pascara has a modern, industrial-looking, no-frills design.
As the sun set behind us, the shadow of the BSR building was reflected on the steel and glass building across the street, for a very urban and modern effect. Welcome to the new Petah Tikva.
The restaurant has a private room that can accommodate 25 guests and is equipped with all the electronics.
Getting there: Park in the multi-level underground parking lot under the BSR center, and take the elevator up to the large outdoor square on the ground floor.
- Pescara Restaurant
- BSR, 3 Totzeret Ha’aretz St., Petah Tikva
- Phone: (03) 698-9820
- Kashrut: Rabbanut Petah Tikva
- Open Sunday-Thursday 6 p.m.-11 p.m.; Saturday 8:30 p.m.-11 p.m. Closed Friday and on Shabbat
The author is the founder and CEO of eLuna.com, the premier English language website for kosher restaurants in Israel.