Giaconda — Restaurant in Tel-Aviv

We had the ghastly privilege to spend an unfortunate evening at Giaconda, a wine bar that does not wish to respect you as a customer but rather sees you as an opportunity, a sucker who is a mere walking wallet, that must be embezzled out of money in exchange to a bad product and dismal service. Awful.

We spontaneously arrived at the place, which somehow has a very high Goggle Map rank, and were seated outside, on the pavement right on the hectic and jammed Frishman street, and under an unstable and unappealing scaffolding. The outside seating is a chain of tightly arranged tables, whereby a movement in one table causes a domino-effect movements in the others [We observed other unfortunate guests encountering difficulties when navigating their way out of this meticulously disarrayed arrangement of tables and chairs, compelling them to bid for the most exceptional spatial vectors...]. So the entire evening was spent on involuntary forced movements and constant realignments. The fact that they allow people to smoke in this crowded organization, just make things even worse.

Then, the waitress arrived. She put in front of us a small food menu, and as for wines, no menu or information whatsoever - these were subjected to a real time negotiation between us and her. A weird conversation has followed, where we had to describe the color of the wine we would like, and enclose the scopes of aromas and flavors. She, obviously, is not an expert, so one cannot get a feedback which is developed into a real dialogue on wine. She told us that "she has something in mind" for each of us, never disclosed, even upon serving, what is the wine that we drink, where it comes from, what is the grape variety, and anything that is minimally required when you pay 16$ for a one glass of miserly quantity of wine.

Of the three wine glasses that were served, two of them were undoubtedly rotten, inferior and inadequate for consuming. The rose was imbued with a strong acidic sub-flavor whereas the white had the sheer smell of sweaty buttocks. Again, as has happened several times during this unfortunate evening and of which we can only blame ourselves, I took the wrong decision and drank this fanny seasoned wine and the struggle to finish this grisly cup of wine had turned into a ruthless bathroom endeavors on the following day.

Lastly, I would like to mention another grim aspect to our dubious experience. As anyone who has enjoyed a classy wine bar or any place that serves high-end liqueur knows, water must be served abundantly and complimentary without having the customer even ask for that. We were told that there is no possibility to have water but to buy small bottles of 250 ml, each for 6$!!! If they take pride in their wine, which they obviously do not - and that is the only candid thing we can observe in their conduct, they should not try to make money out of water. This is a complete shame.

We are veterans of organic and natural wine venues and have visited many all across Europe. We know that these wines have a completely different sets of taste and smell, but nothing we have experiences was so appalling as the quality of wine we were served at Giaconda.

So, if you like an odd and morbid under-the-scaffold experience overlooking a traffic jam, cramped in a line of tables as if they were together a sort of an horizontal fortification, overpaying 60$ USD for a cup of the most noxious wine, and be deprived of complementary water or any other complementarities [the name of the place is pretentiously Italian, but forget about getting the minimal olives, chips etc. tapas that must accompany a very expansive wine, yeah like in Italy, or any other places that takes pride on their product], then this is the perfect place for...

The place to enjoy wine by bottle or glass. Two great ladies, with great expertise, hand picking wines - biological/organic only from the old world. You will not find there anything not deeply researched first. They will select the preferred bottle that will suit you or you can just sit and enjoy a glass while nibbling on great side dishes. I cannot describe the great ambience and hospitality. Go there - and you’ll understand. There’s a lot of love and passion there. P.S. You can also find some local selected wines, mainly from boutique...

Great wines and service. The variety of wines is amazing. You'll find a bottle you will like. You can buy a bottle or a glass and drink it there. The prices of the bottle is better value than the glass. If you come wanting something specific so take the bottle. If you want to try a few wines (then you will know if you want to take a bottle home) you can take a glass of each and they have a lot of wines by the glass. Will come...