Where to find the best Middle Eastern eats in Melbourne
If you’re looking for the finest Middle Eastern fare in our great state, then we’ve got you covered. Here’s where to find the best in Melbourne.
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If you’re looking for the finest Middle Eastern fare in our great state, then we’ve got you covered.
Here’s the four best Middle Eastern restaurants from the Sunday Herald Sun’s delicious.100 - a ranked list of the top 100 restaurants in Victoria.
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BAR SARACEN
Who knew okra is actually the best friend to a cold beer? Well, when dusted in cumin, lightly fried to a crunch and given a spritz of lemon, it certainly is.
It’s a great opening act at Bar Saracen, where two of our city’s great hospo heads – Rumi’s Joseph Abboud and front-of-house pro Ari Vlassopoulos – have created a restaurant “of Middle Eastern appearance”.
That looks like boreks filled with truffled egg and cheese (swoon) and smoky, soft eggplant with barbecue-burnt onions on a pool of fermented whey called kashik. It means a confidently textural octopus with pickled green chilli and crisp-skinned Murray cod with tahini. A plate of creamy-sharp hummus topped with crisp fried chickpeas and a tiny tender dice of calamari, eaten with hot, fluffy house-made pita, is reason enough to visit – and return.
The food is excellent and keenly priced and the interesting wines – locals, plus a few from “wherever the Arabs have been” – are chosen for diners’ enjoyment not a sommelier’s ego.
It’s cheeky, delicious fun, as welcoming for a quick sip and snack as it is for making a full night of it – a night that will likely end with arak, either in shots or splashed over pineapple sorbet.
BAR SARACEN
22 Punch Lane, Melbourne
03 8639 0265
Must-eat dish: Hummus
Chefs: Tom Sarafian & Joseph Abboud
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Tues-Fri 12pm-late; Sat 5.30pm-late
Instagram: @barsaracen
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
MAHA
Maha has been Melbourne’s favourite Middle Eastern dining den since 2008 and, ten years on, Shane Delia’s twinkling sub-basement diner feels more assured – and affordable – than ever.
A choice of three set-course menus is offered. The eight-course degustation ($140) is where Delia cuts loose with modish flourishes, but the more relaxed, almost rustic four-course ‘soufra’ ($85) casts its own spell.
Among an array of masterful mezze, we loved arak-pickled cucumber and beef kibbeh on puffed black rice. The roasted lamb shoulder with green olive tabouleh remains a signature main, too.
But Delia’s way of casting classics in a new light is best shown in his ‘gul borek’, a small share dish where black cabbage, lentil and feta are locked in layers of flaky pastry, with fermented black garlic. Sublime.
MAHA
21 Bond Street, Melbourne
03 9629 5900
Must-eat dish: Slow roasted lamb shoulder, garlic, cumin, green olive tabouleh
Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Chefs: Shane Delia & Daniel Giraldo
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch daily, 12-3pm; dinner daily 6pm-late
Instagram: @maharestaurant
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
TULUM
Here is Melbourne’s real Turkish delight. A modest 50-seat restaurant in Balaclava that draws inspiration from Turkey’s seven different culinary regions.
And as Tulum enters its third year, co-owner and chef Coskun Uysal seems more emboldened than ever to reimagine classic Turkish recipes.
Barramundi anchored a Turkish yoghurt soup; supple lamb neck was enriched with almond tahini and a sucuk (dry spicy sausage) crumble; and a dessert daringly unified sekerpare – Turkey’s beloved semolina cookies – with hazelnut mousse and black tea ice cream.
Uysal’s signature cilbir (slow-cooked egg with smoked yoghurt in brown butter crumb) was a comfort stop on this revolutionary road, enhanced with spinach and paprika butter.
TULUM
217 Carlisle St, Balaclava
9525 9127
Must eat dish: Lamb neck, almond tahini and sucuk crumble
Cuisine: Turkish
Chef: Coskun Uysal
Open: Lunch Sat, dinner Tues-Sat
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Instagram: @tulumrestaurant
BYO: Wednesday only
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
YAGIZ
For feasting or sipping, mod Turkish bazaar Yagiz delivers South Yarra chic and great flavours at every turn.
Chef Murat Ovaz worked at Balaclava’s Tulum before pressing play on Yagiz, his first solo venture, and just as before, a personal journey is taking place on the plate in an ode to his homeland’s cuisine, but with flavours so now.
Earthy and textural, calamari stuffed with faro, dill and ezine (white) cheese is a signature for good reason, as are the crisp pastry cigars filled with rich duck confit to stub into lip-tingling isot pepper.
Amped with chilli oil, charred lamb kofta is tempered with a gorgeously smoky baba ghanoush, while silky parsnip puree and parsley oil-filled onion petals team with an outrageously tender beef short rib. Or think ahead, and with 24 hours’ notice you can have a whole roasted saltbush lamb.
Eager staff who don’t upsell work the room with ease, helping you drink to the region with a sultry syrah or killer cocktails like the supremely quaffable Anatolian Dream with sumac vodka.
YAGIZ
22 Toorak Rd, South Yarra
9821 4758
Must eat dish: Lamb kofta, pickled chilli, smoked eggplant
Cuisine: Turkish
Chef: Murat Ovaz
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner Tue-Sat; Lunch Wed-Fri
Instagram: @yagiz.melbourne
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
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The stupidly delicious dish you need to order at Maha Bar
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