Oratorio serves up a symphony of flavors

When patroness of the arts Lily Elstein inaugurated the Elma Arts Complex Luxury Hotel, she made sure its fine dining restaurant, Oratorio, would reflect the hotel’s high standards. While the food received rave reviews, the hotel’s guests alone were not enough to support a full-service restaurant located so far from the country’s major population centers. To reduce overhead, therefore, the hotel recently decided to change Oratorio’s format to buffet service, without stinting on the quality of the food.

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To oversee this changeover, Elma recruited Chef Gil Aviram, who has helmed the kitchens of several of Israel’s most prestigious hotels.

According to Aviram, the buffet was instituted with locals in mind. “Israelis love buffets,” he says, “with lots of choices.”

Aviram, in turn, brought with him a dedicated pastry chef, Sharon Harel.

“Everything we serve is made in-house, and from scratch,” Aviram insists. The only exception are the breads, which are delivered daily from one of Tel Aviv’s leading suppliers.

This hands-on approach also enables Oratorio to cater to diners with special needs, such as allergies.

“Hotel guests will frequently inform us if they have dietary restrictions,” Aviram says. “We always have plenty of options for people who need to avoid gluten, who suffer from food allergies, and, of course, for vegans. Our waiters are also trained to point them out.”

Another difference between Oratorio and a normal fine dining restaurant is that there is no bar, so there are no cocktails, specialty or otherwise. (There is a bar in another part of the hotel, but it is not necessarily open the same hours as the restaurant.) There is, nonetheless, an extensive wine list, curated by the hotel sommelier, featuring kosher wines from Israel exclusively. The exceptions are the sparkling wines and champagnes, imported from Italy and France.

The buffet is particularly lavish on weekends and holidays. In fact, amid such abundance, it is easy to overlook things. For example, I never even realized there was soup, until the chef asked me if I liked it; it was hidden behind the desserts, and nowhere near the appetizers or main courses.

It would have been nice for a restaurant of this caliber to have a printed men. Unfortunately, not only was there no such thing, there were not even little placards identifying the contents of the salvers.

Indeed, missing out on the soup would have been a shame on the evening I was there, since it was roasted eggplant soup, a first for me, and an unusually complex creation.

The buffet groaning with food begins with a myriad of appetizers, including typical antipasti—grilled onions, zucchini, sweet potato, and beets, plus eggplant with tehina—and cold cuts: a variety of smoked meats cured entirely in-house, of which the star was smoked entrecôte, which resembled a kosher prosciutto.

In addition to the plentiful salad bar with crisp, fresh, raw vegetables, there was a large selection of prepared salads, regrettably not identified. Here the outstanding cold salad was al dente peas with beets, while the most unusual was a Moroccan-Turkish mixture of cooked wheat and dried fruits, called ashura. This delicious dish paired especially well with the braised lamb shank, which—after having been slow-cooked for four hours—was fall-off-the-bone tender.

The lamb shank was just one of a wide variety of main courses comprising beef, lamb chicken and fish, such as the flavorful fillet of rock sea bass and a zesty chicken breast piccata. The highlight of this section of the buffet was, without a doubt, the carving station, with its two beef entrées: beef Wellington, filet mignon baked en croûte with a layer of spinach; and the pièce de résistance, bone-in prime rib—the largest slab of meat I've ever been served in this country.

As Aviram explained, the rib roast was cooked for six hours then seared to seal in the juices, resulting in a brilliantly hued reddish-pink center that was juicy and succulent. Naturally, there were plenty of vegetable side dishes, including staples like mashed potatoes and seasonal root vegetables.

Finally, the dessert spread was a buffet unto itself. I lost track after counting about 14 different possibilities of mousses, puddings, cakes, cookies and candies, with no lack of decadently rich chocolate treats, such as brownies. And all this before even getting to the mounds of fresh summer fruit.

Given the plethora of food, there is something for everyone in the family at Oratorio. But even if you have the pickiest children, the kitchen will find a solution: it always has kids’ favorites—schnitzel, french fries and spaghetti—on hand.

Oratorio at the Elma Arts Complex Luxury Hotel

Kosher

Yair Street 1, Zikhron Ya’akov

Tel. (04) 630-0111