Middle Eastern food hits all the right tastebuds across Sydney
FLAVOURS of the Middle East are all the rage right now, writes Renata Gortan.
Sydney Taste
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MIDDLE Eastern cuisine is the new Asian, says the man who built his career on hummus and falafel.
Just as most households have soy sauce in their cupboard, people are now spreading tahini on toast, says chef Michael Rantissi who opened Kepos St Kitchen five year ago, spearheading modern Middle Eastern dining in Sydney. His second restaurant, Kepos & Co, followed 2½ years later.
“A lot of people identified Middle Eastern food with stodgy kebabs, but it’s changed a lot in a couple of years,” he says.
“They are now perceiving it as a healthier cuisine; low carb, low protein with lots of vegetables and full of grains.
“It is poverty food. Not like French cuisine that is based on meat and heavy sauces, it’s about what you have in your garden.”
By offering lighter-style dishes such as smoked labne with candied pistachio, pomegranate and cauliflower salad with wheat, mint, parsley, walnut, pistachio, cranberries Rantissi also highlighted the cuisine’s health benefits to a body-conscious Sydney dining public.
“Middle Eastern food is so good for our climate, in the hot weather people want lighter food. The thinking of food has shifted. It’s all about eating clean, eating more vegetables instead of very rich food and this is an alternative,” he says.
Eventually, he believes diners will learn to distinguish the subtle differences of Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian dishes.
“It took us a lot of time to define Asian cuisine,” he says.
“We are getting there, soon people will be able to tell the difference between Israeli and Lebanese hummus.”
99 Redfern St, Redfern
Italian meets Middle Eastern at this new Redfern restaurant, with dishes such as roast garlic chickpea dip with schiacciata and buffalo mozzarella, sumac and lemon dressing.
490 Crown St, Surry Hills
Ibby Moubadder and Ella Harris of Cuckoo Callay are dishing up contemporary Lebanese food in a bright, light-filled space. The baby prawn falafel may miss the crunch of the regular kind, but the juicy prawn wrapped in its midst more than makes up for it.
5/23, Barangaroo Avenue, Barangaroo
Turkish chef Somer Sivrioglu’s of Efendy created Sydney’s version of a mehayne, Turkish bar on the water, sip an old fashioned spiced with zaa’tar or negroni with pimento and clove.
379 Liverpool St, Darlinghurst
Discover Syrian cuisine for breakfast and try ejjit sujuk, omelet with spiced fermented sausage, goat’s milk arish, mint, parsley and shallots. Or try their barbecues, where you spill out of the laneway behind the restaurant.
292 Bondi Rd, Bondi
Cooking Levantine cuisine from the countries around the Mediterranean, from Jordan through to Turkey. Dishes include cauliflower, sour yoghurt, almond tarator, zhoug and basturma, tea-soaked figs, smoked eggplant.
2 Mitchell St, North Bondi
Named after the Israeli word for marketplace, this cafe offers teff pancakes, a mean shakshuka or Israeli breakfast, a generous, Thali-type dish blending the best of both worlds, including eggs Israeli salad, olives, labne, tahini and muesli with yoghurt.
325 Canterbury Rd, Canterbury
Expect Turkish/Mexican mash up, such as harissa-roasted chicken, tahini yoghurt, coriander salsa. Voted best cheap eats two years running in the delicious. 100 awards.
135 Enmore Rd, Enmore
Turkish on Enmore road has gone cool rather than cheap and cheerful, but it’s so worth it. Try hellim, cheese with fermented Turkish sausage cooked over charcoal with a fried egg.
65-69 Addison Rd, Marrickville
Familiarise yourself with Cypriot cuisine and try sticky pork jowl loukaniko, smoked eggplant, barbecue cos and lamb neck on the bone with toum, chilli and red oil.
2 Park St, Mona Vale
Northern beaches locals are packing out this restaurant at the recently revamped Mona Vale hotel, tucking into applewood smoked labneh, peach, guajillo chilli, roasted pistachios.