Hotel Happenings

And that is what happened. Hilton has canned Brunch… or have they? Their restaurant has not shut down, but it has reinvented itself with a new Sunday name (Tutti a Tavola) and a new concept.
It works like this: it is based upon the concept of provincial Italian home dining but without the big fat Italian mama clucking like a hen and stuffing endless bottles of Chianti into your face. Thank God for that.
But they are faithful to the concept of long hours of lazy home dining with a continuous supply of food. In keeping with this genuine country culture, dishes are brought to your table in large bowls and thereafter you help yourself – unless you have a big bossy Romanian mama who will instantly take over and will also stuff endless bottles of Chianti into your face.
There is no fixed menu, and the selection of food will change weekly according to the Chef's whim. This is good. Wine, of course, is essential and the ubiquitous sparkling so-called Champagne served at Brunches simply will not lend its presence to the Tavola menu.
But at the time of going to press, I do not know what the House policy is going to be regarding the substitution of wine for sparkling fizz. They are opening this Sunday, so I, like you, have to wait and see. But they are committed to wine rather than fizz, although I do not know what quantities are in question!
Let's look at the food. There is no menu, so you open with a selection of House-made breads together with a small tapas sized plate of little dips including a spread of artichoke tapenade, high quality kalamata olives (no, they are not green and they are not stuffed with a red pimento) and salted olive oil.
Next up is an anti pasti plate for your table to dive into. There is not much to say about this, as anti pasti is pretty well universally uniform in Bucharest. So, predictably there was cold grilled vegetables, ricotta cheese, salads and cold salami cuts and Parmesan. Now let's get down to the hot dishes.
I was about to say “what a choice,” but you don't get a choice. They are just presented to your table. So unless you tell your waiter that you are full, you can expect: grilled steak, roast ‘lega' lamb, beef stew together with the usual suspects of vegetables.
But it doesn't end there. There is one serving dish containing a selection of prawns, salmon, squid and tuna. Let's add to that with mountains of pasta dishes including: three risotto, pesto linguini and potato gnocchi.
Are you full yet? Well you have to be some kind of obese gluttonous porker to be still hungry after this lot. But if you really are hungry, what then? The House has told me that there is enough food to fill anyone, but as the House are gentlemen, I strongly suspect that if you ask for more they will give it to you.
Cynics will say that Hilton has just rebranded its Brunch restaurant. This is untrue. With a new menu, a new gastronomic food concept and new opening hours, (it is open from noon till 9 pm), it truly is a new restaurant. But Tavola is on Sundays only. On weekdays it reverts to Roberto's.

Michael Barclay
mab.media@dnt.ro