The Inbal Hotel Soup Festival: A winter tradition - review

There is something comforting about tradition, especially as it relates to food (Thanksgiving, anyone?). When I saw on Facebook that the Inbal Hotel was reopening its traditional soup festival, I knew that winter was really on the way.

Every year on Facebook foodie groups, there is a spirited discussion about whether the price for the soup festival (NIS 87) for bread, spreads, and all the soup you can slurp is too high. I personally am happy to make a meal of soup and consider it good value for money.

When I walked into the hotel’s dining room off the lobby, I was greeted with a buzz of conversation in Hebrew, English, and French. Our waiter, Fadi, a lovely young social work student from east Jerusalem, spoke all those languages fluently. 

He showed me on his phone that he had bookmarked my review of the soup festival from last year, where I had written about his skill as a waiter.

One improvement this year is that you can go to the Inbal’s website and check the list of soups for the day you plan to go.

There is always one “special” soup, where the chef is making a little side dish to go with the soup, and five others which vary, although the onion soup and the minestrone, which are the most popular, are served every day.

I have one complaint, which I mentioned last year as well. The “extras” for the soup – cheese, rice, and noodles – are not next to the area where the soups are served, meaning you have to serve yourself soup and then bring your bowl to another part of the buffet to put the extras in.

The special of the night 

The special soup the night we visited was green vegetable. It was made with broccoli and zucchini, and the chef was making toasted bread with cream and fresh dill to accompany it. It was quite good.

The other soups for the evening were onion, minestrone, smoked pepper soup, green pea soup, and smoked eggplant Parmigiana. 

While all were good (and I can neither confirm nor deny that I tasted all of them), the eggplant was something special. I highly recommend that you go on a day when it is being served. Some of the soups are dairy, others are vegan, and they are clearly labeled.

I didn’t detect soup powder in any of the soups. The French onion was rich, and the smoked pepper soup quite unique.

Another recommendation: The soup bowls are large, so if you want to taste all the soups, don’t fill the bowls or you will fail in your mission.

There are several types of bread, such as round pita with garlic and za’atar, and several spreads, which include carrot (my favorite), pesto, and olive tapenade.

Drinks and dessert cost extra.

It’s the kind of place where you can strike up a conversation as you are serving yourself from the large soup tureens or as you ask your neighbor at the next table what soup he or she preferred.

Next to us were a young couple, Moshe and Yvette, who were celebrating their 10-month (that’s month, not year) anniversary. They had recently gotten engaged and had been looking forward to the soup festival.

“It’s a whole experience,” Moshe said.

He said they started dating last year just as the soup festival was ending, so they were determined to make it this year. By next year’s soup festival, they will be married and may even have a baby on the way!

Inbal Soup FestivalSunday-Thursday, Noon -10 p.m.Reservations required. Phone (02) 675-6666Kashrut: Jerusalem Rabbinate

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.