Shylock lives down to its name (bar review)

Jerusalem Post, Billboard; January 20, 2006

There's no major reason behind the name Shylock - a new bar off Masrik Square, says co-owner Mordi Meshel, now 10 years in the Tel Aviv nightlife business.

While buying furniture for the place at the Jaffa flea market, a huge portrait of Shakespeare caught his eye. The imposing painting now hangs near the entrance, and it inspired the name. The most recent film version of The Merchant of Venice was playing at the time, and the owners were simply taken by the name of the character of the Jewish miser, Shylock.

Meshel, who also owns Post Cafe on King George, envisioned Shylock as a bona-fide, down-to-earth, low-key neighborhood pub. There are no real neighborhood pubs in the Rabin Square area - a place to unwind after work with friends or stroll into late at night wearing winter sweats. With its warm and mellow atmosphere, created by the old wooden furniture, lamps, paintings and jazzy music, Shylock fills a void.

Meshel's Georgian mother cooks many of the items on the modest menu, from the chopped liver to the soups. The kitchen is at the end of the bar, since Shylock is very compact, but it serves up finger foods, sandwiches and toasts. There are about a dozen wooden tables, and most of the furniture hails from Jaffa. Even the well- stocked alcohol shelf was once a pharmacist's medicine cabinet, and the old-fashioned Israeli floor tiles remain intact.

Mama's homemade vegetable soup hit the spot on a winter night, but it was served with bread that looked and tasted like it came out of a supermarket loaf. Then I looked around at the old furniture, the former medicine cabinet, the tiny kitchen, the chachka paintings carefully put together with minimal investment - and suddenly the name of the place made sense.