About a year ago, I celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary with a pleasure trip toBrittany וPérigordIf Corona had not come into our lives, I guess we would have celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary inParis. But God apparently had other plans and we had to celebrate the occasion in Israel in the million-degree heat. To my delight, I heard that Eric Kayser's famous boulangerie/patisserie (Maison Kayser) decided to open its first branch in the Holy Land right now. So we decided that if we can't come to Paris, then at least Paris can come to us.
The wedding anniversary came on September 6th and on that day we headed to the Tel Aviv port and entered with awe the branch that had officially opened just a few days before. Did the anticipation and excitement justify themselves? I promise to tell you more in a moment, but first a few words about the pair of words “Aric Kaiser” that make quite a few Francophiles and carb lovers excited.
Eric Kaiser – A Tradition of Baking
Éric Kayser, born in 1964, is the son of a family of bakers from Palestine. Lorraine (His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all in the profession.) Kaiser, who fell in love with the field from a young age, invented in 1994, together with his friend Patrick Castagna, a revolutionary new device for making sourdough bread. It is a machine that cools and ferments the sourdough while in motion, thus making the results more uniform.
In 1996, Eric Kaiser opened his first bakery on Monge Street on the Left Bank, and it became an almost overnight success thanks to that wonderful sourdough bread. As a result, Kaiser began opening more and more bakeries, first in Paris, then throughout France, and finally abroad.
“My” Harik Kaiser Boulangerie is located at 16 Rue des Petits Carreaux, not far fromMontreuil Street And I loved visiting there when I lived inCute apartment in the third district, right on the western border of theMaraisI remember getting up every morning, walking for a few minutes, and enjoying the cool air of Paris (which we miss so much right now) and the quiet of the sleepy city (the City of Lights usually only starts waking up around nine in the morning). When I arrived at the boulangerie/patisserie, there would already be a few slightly sleepy Parisians standing there (I naturally get up at seven in the morning, so I was already there by seven-thirty) quietly waiting for their turn.
What would I buy there? Of course, their famous sourdough bread, which looks like a huge wheel (they let me buy half a loaf, and if I'm not mistaken, you can also buy a few slices). This bread goes great with butter and all kinds of spreads, cold cuts and cheeses, all of which can be bought on Rue Montreuil, where some of the best food shops in Paris are located. Personally, what I liked best was to buy a divine tuna spread at the Allegre market and spread it on this bread. Taking a bite of it is a bit like talking to God…
Beyond bread, Kaiser's Boulangerie of course provided us with everything a good French patisserie can provide: from airy and buttery croissants to excellent cakes. When I visited there, I would try a different cake each time. However, as a chocolate lover, I would eventually return to the "Palais Royale" cake or the chocolate eclair.
I admit and confess that, with all my love for Kaiser's boulangerie/patisserie, I have not been loyal to it and have "betrayed" it with quite a few other bakeries (my favorite boulangerie is Boulangerie bo, which bakes divine black bread and can be found at 85bis Rue de Charenton). However, I certainly have fond memories of it and so, like quite a few local Francophiles, I was excited to hear that he had decided to open a new branch here (one of about 200 branches he has worldwide).
So, armed with memories and longing for France, I showed up with my parents at the Tel Aviv port and entered the new, elegant store. Was I pleased or disappointed?
So is the local branch of Maison Kayser as good as the one in Paris?
We Israelis are a practical people. That's why after reading the introduction to Eric Kaiser's famous bakeries, we immediately want to know whether this is an experience similar to a visit to one of his Parisian branches or a magnificent flop, such as the Israeli branch of Fochon. So let me disappoint you a little and not provide you with a definitive statement for two reasons.
The first reason is that this is a place that is still in the early stages of development (it opened less than a week before this article was written) and as such it still has some fine tuning to do. The second reason is that I did not buy the famous sourdough bread there, so it would be unfair to rate the place without tasting its flagship product. Why didn't I do so? You'll read about that in a moment, but for now, let me assure you that in the future I will taste the bread and update the article.
But you can't just give up on nothing, so instead I'll write about things I liked about the local branch of Eric Kaiser and things I liked less. This way I'll let each of you decide whether the place is right for you or not.
Things I liked about Arik Kaiser in Tel Aviv
You can eat cake or a sandwich and look at the sea.
When I heard that they decided to open the local branch of Arik Kaiser in the Tel Aviv port (on the ruins of the “Moll Yam” restaurant), I admit that I was a little surprised. A bakery is supposed to provide bread to the residents of the area, and as far as I know, no one lives in the port area itself. Hence, it would have made much more sense to open it on one of the main streets of Tel Aviv (such as the excellent Patisserie La Moulin, which is located at 72 Bograshov Street).
But when I arrived and saw the deck chairs in front of the patisserie and the small tables next to them, I immediately understood what the owners had in mind. True, the temperatures outside when I visited were only slightly cooler than the temperatures of the ovens inside, but none of that stopped me from imagining myself sitting there in a month or two, when the weather was sane again, enjoying the sea breeze along with some sandwich or cake. In short, aspire to the idea!
Chocolate eclair and Palais Royal cake
As I wrote before, I'm a chocolate person, so I ordered the chocolate eclair and the Palais Royale cake, both of which I remembered from Paris. To my great delight, I was not disappointed.
The chocolate eclair dough wasn't bad at all and the chocolate was excellent. The only comment I had was that they made do with a paper bottom and didn't bother giving the eclair a small plate to sit on.
The Palais Royale cake, consisting of two layers of chocolate, was also excellent, and the use of high-quality chocolate and excellent nuts was definitely noticeable. It's no wonder it was devoured in a short time.
The price is more than reasonable.
To my surprise, the prices of the cakes at Eric Kaiser were not particularly high (25 NIS for a cake that you can eat on the spot). True, it is still more expensive than the price of a similar cake in Paris (where it is 3-4 euros per cake), but relative to prices in Israel, it is not particularly expensive. I have no idea if this is the place’s pricing policy or if these are launch prices, but let me commend them for not trying to take advantage of the fact that we cannot visit Paris right now to squeeze us.
Things I liked less
The croissant that came out of quarantine
Let's start right away with the (dead) elephant in the room – the croissant. Since this is a bakery, it was impossible to visit without tasting at least one of the baked goods. Since I had already eaten lunch, I decided to forgo the sandwiches made from the bread they bake on site, and instead went for the croissant.
One bite made me realize the magnitude of the horror. Instead of crispy, buttery dough that crackled in my mouth, I got a tired, hard dough that had to be chewed like a steak. I have no idea what happened there and how a serious place fell so hard. Was this a croissant that came to us straight from France and had to spend two weeks in quarantine before arriving tired and battered in the straw basket at the patisserie? I don't know, but I hope this is a one-time fall.
Forget Parisian atmosphere
If you were expecting Parisian design and sweetly playing chanson music while you sit and chew on a Sandwich au Camembert, then let me disappoint you.
The atmosphere in the place is noisy and even a little chaotic. Maybe it's because the place's name came before it and quite a few people come to see the wonder? Or is it because it's a new team that still needs to learn to work with each other? All of this can be forgiven and I'm sure that over time business will improve. What's a little more problematic here is the music.
The feeling here is that the owners said to themselves, “We won’t be a French cliché, so instead Chansons We'll play some obscure electronic music here.” The result is noise and a lack of atmosphere, which makes sitting in the place not particularly pleasant.
Buy a whole loaf or don't buy at all.
Since Eric Kaiser's name came out thanks to his famous sourdough bread, we wanted to buy home half a loaf that we could freeze and taste later.
In Paris, this is not a problem. They will sell you half a loaf, a quarter of a loaf, or even a few slices. Here we were faced with the cruel choice of either buying the whole loaf or nothing. So since we didn't have room in the freezer for such a loaf, we decided to forgo the bread and settle, as mentioned, for cakes. So even if we didn't taste the sourdough bread, there's no doubt that we left the place with a slightly sour taste.
We are done and we will not finish.
As you can see, I left Eric Kaiser's branch with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I enjoyed some things, but on the other hand, there were definitely some niggles. So, bottom line, do I recommend you go there? I think the answer is “yes.”
First, there aren't many high-quality patisseries in the country, so every new place that opens is a blessing for lovers of sweets and carbohydrates. Second, the potential of sitting on a comfortable chair in front of the sea with a cake or a sandwich is very, very tempting. And third, this is a new place and every place like this has its flaws at first. I'm pretty sure that slowly all the small and minor problems will be resolved and the place will become even better than it is today (and let's not get misunderstandings, even now the place is not bad at all).
So as long as flights to Paris are closed to most of us, we can certainly try to take comfort in this patisserie that popped up on the beach and continue to dream about the wonderful patisserie of the City of Lights.
Address of the place
Eric Kaiser’s boulangerie is located in the Tel Aviv port, facing the sea. Those who are familiar with the restaurants “Moll Hayam” or the late Gillis will be able to find the place easily. Everyone else will have to look for it on the northern part of the port promenade and will find it easily.
More information about the place can be found atLink this.