Tarantino Italian restaurant, Tel Aviv Photo: Courtesy

Breakfast at Tiffany’s would have been nice, but for the time being we had breakfast at Tarantino, a chain of Italian restaurants with a kosher dairy eatery perched above the busy Ayalon on the second floor of the Azrieli Shopping Center in Tel Aviv.After a busy shopping spree and some intensive retail therapy, Tarantino is a great place to take a load off your feet and relax in a friendly atmosphere, where owner Sagiv Arias and the young wait staff give customers a warm welcome.

The full breakfast (NIS 59) is very substantial and is served until 12:30 p.m., making it a totally acceptable early lunch. The menu has some items not normally associated with breakfast and are all the more welcome for that.

Firstly, the all-important coffee is excellent – strong, flavorful and made with fresh milk. None of that embalming fluid long-life milk at Tarantino.

While my companion and I studied the menu, the waitress brought us a selection of salads and dips, with a wonderful grain- encrusted crispy baguette. The selection included tomato butter made with sun-dried tomatoes, chunky vegetable-enhanced tuna, small black pitted olives, pickled lemon, a mild curd cheese and multi-colored cherry tomatoes in a basil-flavored salad.

All were tasty, well-flavored and not drowning in oil.

The two main choices on the breakfast menu are eggs done in a variety of ways or a pastry filled with various savory fillings. The eggs come with a variety of Italian accompaniments and have authentic-sounding Italian names.

Siciliana is made with diced eggplant, tomatoes and feta; Funghi is a variety of mushrooms; or you can pick the Four-Cheese omelette with some favorite Italian cheeses.

The pastry, which has the filling baked inside, comes with a fried egg and offers similar possibilities with a variety of additions such as artichoke or fried onion.

I was delighted to note that the food, when it arrived, was piping hot – in my opinion, a great asset to the enjoyment.

The two main dishes were accompanied by a finely cut cubed Israeli salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, lightly salted and flavored with lemon juice and a minimal amount of oil.“Everything is freshly made as it is ordered,” says Arias. “We use only the best ingredients, with top-quality olive oil imported from Italy.” The owner says he is also working on upgrading the atmosphere of the restaurant.

While breakfast is served until 12:30 p.m., business lunches are also served. And in the evening, Arias says he likes to turn down the lights a little to make the place more romantic. The background music, which is never loud, is pleasant and often Italian.

To end our meal on a sweet note, we had the delicious bread with homemade plum jam and butter. And, of course, another cup of that outstanding coffee.

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.

Tarantino
Kosher dairy
Azrieli Shopping Center, 2nd floor, Tel Aviv Sun-Thurs. 9 a.m.–10:30 p.m.

Fri. 9 a.m.– 3:30 p.m. Closed Saturday.

Tel: (03) 609-3877

mh- New York Jewish Guide.com