Popcorn chicken loaded with caviar makes its Double Bay debut at this new eatery
He worked with the best, but it was Faheem Noor’s four-year-old daughter’s discovery that helped inspire the menu at his new restaurant, Ruma.
Chef Faheem Noor has worked in the restaurant kitchens of Gordon Ramsay and Tetsuya Wakuda, but inspiration for a dish on the opening menu at his new Sydney restaurant, Ruma, arrived from an unlikely source: Noor’s four-year-old daughter, Maia.
“Her favourite food is caviar,” Noor says a little sheepishly. The four-year-old was eating another of her favourites, popcorn chicken, and started loading caviar on top. “It tasted great. I love fried chicken, so I’ve paired it with [bite-sized] fried chicken.”
Ruma, which opens on Wednesday, December 4, is a 120-seat eatery in the space where Little Jean previously traded in Double Bay.
“They [Little Jean’s owners] used to make their own cheese and bread, it was sold, then COVID hit,” Noor explains. He wants to fashion Ruma as an accessible eatery in the style of Blackwood, in Bondi, and Potts Point’s Pina.
“There’s nothing like that on this side of Double Bay. Good produce, simple ingredients,” says the chef, who trained at the pointy end of the restaurant world, working for celebrated international chefs Charlie Trotter and the Roux brothers.
“Our menu is inspired by the incredible diversity of Sydney’s food scene,” Noor says. There are some border-hopping pairings: kimchi and scallion hash browns, scrambled eggs with sambal matah, and wagyu striploin with Sarawak pepper.
Noor, who is also a co-owner at the nearby upmarket Bartiga restaurant, explains Ruma is the word for home in his native Malay. He also likes that it sounds similar to the English word rumour. “We’re blending familiar flavours with unique touches to create dishes that feel like home but with a twist.”
On the subject of home, what is he doing feeding a four-year-old caviar in the first place? “She had her first taste of it at [Potts Point restaurant] Franca,” Noor says.
The chef points out he isn’t the first to pair chicken and caviar, with Sydney chef Big Sam Young marrying chicken nuggets and Beluga caviar a few years ago. (And US-based Momofuku chef David Chang was championing the combination well before that.)
Noor’s proud of his daughter’s growing palate. “Spag bol was her favourite thing before caviar. You train them young,” he says.
Open breakfast and lunch daily; dinner Wed-Sat
Shop 1, 1 Kiaora Lane, Double Bay, rumadining.com.au
Scott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.