For a restaurant with two foreign names, Paris Texas is mighty patriotic about Israel.
All of the food is sourced locally, with nothing imported from either Paris, Texas, or anywhere in between. The beef comes from farms in the South, the house wine is from the Golan Heights Winery in the North, and everything is produced in Israel.
There are six restaurants in the Paris Texas chain, but only the Netanya restaurant has kosher certification. Unlike the other branches, the Netanya kitchen stocks no dairy ingredients. A cashew-based nondairy product is used where dairy is required.
“We let the meat do the talking,” Chen, the owner of the kosher Netanya branch, said.
Chen, as his name suggests, is a charmer. This is not his first rodeo. He has been in the food and wine service business for many years, so he knows the game.
We were impressed by the elegant look of the restaurant, with its deep Burgundy-colored velvet upholstery, a bright open kitchen, and a gleaming bar displaying a wall of Israeli wines.
“We designed the restaurant with an open kitchen to be completely transparent,” Chen explained.
Meat, meat, and more meat
The elegant decor is the “Paris” part of the name, which suggests European elegance. “Texas” is the down-home meaty part of the story. Think cowboys, rodeos, lassos, and cattle. Put them all together, and you have an all-meat restaurant for casual dining in an elegant setting.
We were handed a one-page food menu offering meat, meat, and more meat.
Knowing my preference for vegetarian dishes, my companion warned me that I wouldn’t find much to eat at this restaurant. No matter what, I thought, there is always hummus.
He was right about the starters, which include short ribs, kebab skewers, wings, and everyone’s favorite, chicken nuggets coated in corn flakes and fried to a crisp (four pieces, NIS 52). Americans will recognize the nuggets as Southern fried chicken. Chen, having lived in the Southern US, knows all about this. Still, no hummus in sight.
The next two sections of the menu offer grilled meat dishes by weight and a variety of burgers prepared on a plancha (metal plate). The beef is dried and aged and ground fresh for the burgers throughout the day.
The basic Butchers Burger is a 200/250-gr. all-meat burger in a bun with all the toppings. There is a choice of several other burgers, including slow-smoked pulled beef short ribs (asado) with Romesco sauce, topped with sautéed mushrooms. The most popular burger, Chen told us, is the Smash Burger: double smashed beef patties and all the condiments (NIS 84).
With the meat dishes came a big bowl of crispy, delicious chips. These are some of the best chips that we have had in any restaurant. Prepared separately, the chips are parve.
With a nod to nonmeat eaters, the restaurant offers a 200-gram mushroom burger and a vegan burger from Beyond Meat.
But I recommend the freshly cut Caesar salad sprinkled with (nondairy) Parmesan and croutons. Though it sounded somewhat off-course to go for a salad at a heavy-duty meat restaurant, this salad turned out to be the best way to enjoy the buffet of amazing condiments, one of the highlights of this kitchen.
With sauces like these, who needs hummus?
The meat may speak for itself, but the condiments are what does it. You’ll want to try each of the extraordinary original sauces, prepared fresh every day at the restaurant. The sauces served on a platter at your table are intended to enhance the meat dishes, but nonmeat eaters will want to enjoy them on the salad or with the chips. I tried every one.
With sauces like these, who needs hummus? And in just so many seconds, the hummus was forgotten.
Burgers go with beer, like peanut butter with jelly, Bert and Ernie, and Matot and Masei. So, beer it was. The only time the restaurant breaks the locally sourced rule is for the outstanding French blanc beer, on tap.
Though it was early in the day for alcohol, it is never too early for a lovely lychee-based cocktail, a preview of the evening vibe at lunch.
The ambiance in the afternoon was calm and relaxing, but the vibe of the Paris Texas chain is young and good-time. Be advised that after 8 p.m. the volume will go up, the age of the diners will go down, and the alcohol will flow.
For your sweet tooth, Paris Texas offers crème brûlée, lemon pie, and hot chocolate cake. We skipped this part of the meal, which was missed about as much as the hummus.
The restaurant is fully accessible. There is convenient underground parking and on street level adjacent to the restaurant.
Paris Texas
28 Ha’orazim, Yahalom building
Netanya
Tel: 050-495-9800
Hours: Sun.-Thurs., 12 p.m.-11:30 p.m.; Sat. night from after Shabbat until 11:30 p.m. Closed: Friday and Shabbat.
Kashrut: Netanya Rabbinate
The writer was a guest of the restaurant. She is the founder and CEO of eLuna.com, the premier English-language website for kosher restaurants in Israel.