Restaurant review: A greek tragedy

Istria.  163 Calea Victoriei. 0742 582 728

Let’s face it. Some locations are just not lucky. And this is one of them! In Ceaucescu’s time it was hidden away from the public behind a block which is now a bank and office complex. There, the card carrying communist thugs and gangsters would dine in luxury away from the public gaze. But it all ended in 1989 and the premises languished for years, unloved and unwanted.

It subsequently re-opened as a Romanian restaurant – and failed. Six years ago it was re-invented as The Golden Apple, a wonderful Lebanese restaurant which I loved – but after a few years it too failed! After that, it became a nightclub which also failed. And now it has been rebadged as Istria – and unless they make some major changes it will be another failure!

The first thing to change is the décor. It is the tackiest, most bad-taste concept I have ever seen. It is themed (as is the food) on Greek lines. But it is appalling. Little has changed since it was The Golden Apple. So there is a ludicrous giant statue of a Greek goddess, made not from marble, but cheap alabaster. Likewise there are two white imitation Corinthian columns, which upon my touching them also turned out to be hollow and made from cheap plaster. The walls were emblazoned with cartoon murals of  Greek ‘things’. The lighting was tacky 1960s style hanging ceiling lights.

Everything was wrong about the interior. Eating there just made me feel uncomfortable. It must be redesigned, and the entire interior should be gutted from ceiling to floor.

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So let’s look at the menu. They boast that they are a Greek seafood restaurant. This leaves no room for creativity on behalf of the chef, as everybody who has eaten fish in Greece can attest – all the Greeks do is grill it. That’s it. No options!

So I looked for the most quintessentially Greek ‘must have’ dish: the famous mezza trolley. There are no rules about the contents of a mezza, suffice it to say there are usually 20 or  30 tiny dishes for you to select from. Mezza is always the pride of the House and it gives the chef and the customers a sense of fun. But guess what? They didn’t have any mezza!

But they did have a good selection of fish, at a price! For the fish was priced per 100 grams. With all the fish weighing in at well over 100 grams, you can do your own arithmetic as the costs varied between RON 10 and 35. You would be well advised to raise the limit on your credit card before checking in here.

They had such an adventurous choice, and my eye went to a fish I had never heard of before. It was a ‘san pietro’, which I later translated into its international name of ‘john dory’. It has never been seen in a Romanian restaurant, and sure enough… they didn’t have it here either. Whilst I was querying this with the friendly waiter, the chef emerged from the kitchen. I liked his confidence to approach the customers directly. I also liked him, and I sensed instinctively that he would be a good chef. He was! He was from Bangladesh and he knew his stuff.

He, alone, can make this venture succeed. If the House does the usual Bucharest trick of bringing in a star chef to open the premises and then dumping him after a few months, they will pay for the consequences in lack of business.

I asked to examine all the fish they had. Without complaint (and enthusiastically), both chef and waiter proudly brought me a tray of all the fish in the kitchen. It was not all the fish on the menu, and I forgive them for this as they have just opened and it is reasonable that they had not fully stocked the kitchen. But all the fish was perfectly fresh.

But each fish was huge, weighing in around 1.5 kilos. Look at the comments I made above about the prices. I begged the chef to make me something that was not grilled. I wanted something baked, boiled, steamed… anything except grilled. So he gave me a baked cod in a salt crust. Thank you chef, it was good.

So we carried on eating. From the starters menu, we passed on predictable dishes made from sword fish,  octopus, calamari and prawns. But out of curiosity we had to try their ‘fish zacusca’. You have to be Romanian to understand ‘zacusca’ as it is untranslatable. But it was good.

Away to a spaghetti vongole. I told the chef exactly how I wanted the proportions of garlic, white wine and clams to be blended, together with a piquant pepper and topped with parmesan shavings. I got precisely what I ordered.

I also got a simple seafood salad of prawns, octopus and calamari, at a forgettable price of RON 40. Everything was good until I tried my ‘bean soup with vongole’. This was a bean puree with fresh clams. I knew it would not work and I was correct. But everything else was fine.

My dining partner, Blondie, wanted a simple ‘sea bream’. There is nothing special about this fish, other than its size

and price. The House wanted RON

27 per 100 kg, at a minimum size

of 1.5 kg, which means a price of around EUR 100. No thanks, she went home hungry.

So let’s look at the plus and minus points. FOR the House, they have excellent friendly waiters, a good chef and a great garden terrace at the rear. AGAINST, the prices are sky high, the décor is ghastly, there is no parking and you can only eat grilled fish, which, however skilled the chef is, is just plain. It would have been far better if they had had a French theme, so that the House could ‘sex up’ the fish with exciting sauces and different cooking methods.

I know Istria will not make any of my suggested changes, so look out for a new place in the same premises next year.

Michael Barclay

mab.media@dnt.ro

Restaurants in Bucharest

Greek Cuisine

Whether it is down a shared Balkan heritage or the spread of Hellenic culture around the world, Bucharest has many eateries with a Greek flavor.

El Greco

17 Decebal Boulevard

021 326 80 98

Mythos

28 Costache Negri Street

021 410 23 76

0727 39 29 38

www.restaurantmythos.ro

Olive Garden

11 Tudor Vianu Street

021 230 26 30

Posidonia

2 Corneliu Coposu Boulevard

021 311 10 45

Rodon

16 J. L. Calderon Street

021 315 81 41

Tarabya Fish

22 Pipera Tunari

021 231 59 65

0744 29 32 78

Thalassina

22 Povernei Street

031 42 50 950/1

0747 775 770

To Eliniko

74 Splaiul Independentei

021 312 1795

Topazio

48-50 Calea Victoriei

021 312.52.02

0723 28 72 39

Zorbas

31 Nicodim Street

0721 40 58 75

Zorba The Greek

3 Mendeleev Street

021 310 28 43

0724 87 33 30

www.zorbathegreek.ro