Bet Melchett: Our sweet lord - review

The restaurant nearby bears his name and offers dairy meals in the beautiful setting of the town that he established, Tel Mond.

I have visited Bet Melchett, the restaurant, several times in the last few years and always found it to be a lovely place for breakfast and lunch. It’s a glass-walled structure surrounded by the veteran trees planted by the idealist Lord Melchett a century ago.

As we sat down at our table, two passiflora (passion fruit) slushies arrived to cool us down from the blazing heat outside.

The lunch menu is not extensive but adequate, and we both found dishes that appealed to our different tastes. I ordered the roasted cabbage dish, and a very large chunk of the vegetable arrived, hot and buttery, with a huge dollop of fresh cream topped with roasted pecans and almonds. It was a great delicacy (NIS 69).

My companion chose hummus and tehina – but this dish was far from the standard. It was decorated with a variety of salad veggies, looked like a piece of op art and had a great smoky flavor and just enough peppery sauce to liven up what is a fairly conventional dish.

For a main dish, I chose something called ‘vegetarian steak,’ which was smoked aubergine on toast topped with two fried eggs. It bore little resemblance to real steak in texture, but that didn’t bother me. The slices of Portobello mushrooms with cheesy coating proved to be a very good choice (NIS 65.)

My companion chose one of the two fish dishes offered, grilled barbounia with risotto and a courgette/broccoli mix. There were two large fillets, which had been cooked just right, and these were complemented by a juicy risotto and the healthy-looking greens (NIS 128).

During our meal I drank a glass of very cold white wine blend, Chardonnay and Semillon, and my companion, his beloved beer, made locally.

We had the pleasure of meeting the chef, Shmuel Passi, and were able to pay our compliments for the meal directly to him and not via a waiter.