Toto — Restaurant in Tel-Aviv

This used to be one of my favorite restaurants in TLV, even with high prices, but no more. This restaurant went downhill fast...

I have never written a negative restaurant review online, but the experience was so bad felt I had to share. I had the misfortune of dining at Toto last night, and I was very disappointed, especially with prices charged I expected much more. The food was not taste, overcooked, and the service was slow and inattentive. Just horrible.

I started with a Salad, and Sushi and both were subpar. The Sushi, while very pleasing to eye on the nicely decorated ice plate, it did not taste fresh sushi. The salad was wilted and dry. For my main course, I ordered the salami pizza, which was incredibly disappointing. The pizza was overcooked, burnt and covered with a spicy sauce to try to hide the flavor be really just made it more oily and ultimately uneatable. I asked that chef try our uneaten pizza, but they just took the tray away in manner that no one was going to try it.

The service was a bigger problem. Our waitress was very slow and she seemed to be in a hurry the entire time. Rather than dealing with poor food and offer to correct the issue, she tried to blame us that we are the problem. At over 500ILS per person I would expect better customer service. We were charged for all the food we did not eat. They did not even offer a complementary desert, chaser or anything. This restaurant used to be good, but has gone downhill fast.

We left hungry after paying high bill!

Overall, I had a very negative experience at Toto. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. Only go there if you want show off that you are there, but eat someplace else.

I would give Toto a rating of 0 out of 5 stars...

This restaurant claims to be a fine-dining restaurant so it should be judged accordingly, especially when being one of the most expensive restaurants in Israel.

I was a bit concerned at first because there were many negative reviews recently complaining about the service and food. I'll share my experience.

Service - The service was great - 5/5. Our waitress was cute, patient and knew what she was talking about. She was always available when we needed something.

Food - Beef tartare - delicious. Nothing negative to say here.

Beet salad with creme fraiche and pecorino - there were several unfortunate mistakes here - only one beet out of the three were cooked. The other two were so hard that it was difficult to cut through them. Next issue - not enough cheeses. Even if you use tiny bits of cheese for each bite of beet, you'll still end up with 1.5-2 beets without cheese to accompany them. Paying 88 Shekels for that is ridiculous.

Tortellini - was delicious. It came with celery root puree which was completely bland. No spices, no salt. It goes well with the tortellini, maybe that's why it's there. Something the waitress should tell us about.

Steak & Egg - decent ribeye steak, cooked well. Was tasty because ribeye tastes good, but nothing special about it.

Desserts - I read that people complained that the desserts tasted parve and they were right. They were lacking flavor.

Music - The music is similar to music you would play in a 'nature party', I liked it. Not sure if it's for everyone.

Overall - 75/100...

I was a big fan of ToTo before the re-opening. Dare I say it was even one of the top restaurants in Tel Aviv. This time around I got really disappointed (to the point where I took only one photo! That almost never happens). We were 4 people coming for lunch. And we encountered few underwhelming issues:

1. The menu is constructed in a very confusing way, in which it us unclear what dish is smaller and counts as a first course and what dish is bigger for a second course. This is confusing both to us as customers and both for the waiters that don’t know in what order they should bring each dish.

2. Prices. I’m familiar with Tel Aviv’s prices, So 200+ NIS Per person doesn’t shock me. But there was absolutely no value for money. Ordering one shrimp skewer that is served next to two Tapas sized plates with eggplant and tomato spread Can not possibly be charged for 200₪. It is insane.

3. Service - Aperitif cocktails came after food has already been served, all dishes came out together in no logical order, tap water needs special request to be refilled, and a feeling of being ignored by waiters.

It seems like at the end of the meal, staff felt that we were a bit disappointed and we received the dessert on the house.

In the bottom line - There is much to improve to get back to the old glory...