The borek bun at Shane Delia’s Maha Bar a must-order
Everything you need to know about Shane Delia’s new venue Maha Bar, the northside sibling to his Maha restaurant, can be found within the four-bite must-order borek bun.
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Order the borek bun.
Everything you need to know about Shane Delia’s newest venue can be found within this sesame-seed covered orb.
This four-bite bun, its crunchy outer giving way to a fluffy, chewy dough filled with a nicely spiced beef mix, is topped with tiny orange dots of hot harissa, small sails of toasted coconut and a sprinkling of chives.
A nod to tradition while creating something for today, it’s at once complex and fun, comforting and precise – and stupidly, utterly delicious.
And that sums up Maha Bar.
Delia has transformed what was his original Biggie Smalls KBab shop on Smith St into the newest extension of his subterranean CBD glamour den, Maha, and follows a similar recast of the Windsor Biggie Smalls last year.
Instead of gunning for the kids who didn’t quite get his quality-over-quantity version of a kebab (they wanted more biggie than smalls) Delia’s doubled down on the older demographic who already know and love his take on mod Middle Eastern served with a side of money-can-buy bling.
It’s worked a treat in Windsor, and, judging by the full first-week crowd, seems equally well pitched here, Maha Bar adding an arak-scented, sumac-sprinkled option to the Gertrude St venues (Enoteca/Cutler&Co/Marion) that have enjoyed a monopoly on diners who don’t stress about making rent.
Having a face from the telly obviously has pulling power, but to call this a celebrity chef restaurant would be discounting Delia’s hands on nature, the big-grinning beefcake taken out of our lounge rooms and found in the kitchen here.
You could come just for that bun ($8 each) and a smashable Lebanese Almaza beer ($11) at the bar and bolt – sipping and snacking is encouraged, especially on weekend afternoons when your drink will come with a gratis meze alongside – but that would mean missing out on the rest of the menu that rarely misses a beat.
Get stuck into all the snacks. Along with that beaut bun there’s impossibly pretty arak soused cucumbers topped with vegan feta and sumac ($5 each), equally alluring little Moroccan crumpets with saffron custard and salmon caviar ($7 each) and a tomato-and-anchovy topped “hobz bil zejt” – a Maltese open sandwich ($6). They are big-hitting flavour bombs that are quick to hit to take the edge off and pair well with one of the flavoured araks and rakis that line the bar; the sour cherry version tempering the aniseedy bite of the liquor that puts hair on your chest with subtle cherry sweetness ($12).
Delia’s had six months to blood Maha East and has taken those “learnings” to this new venue – the music is less intrusive, the portions more generous, the lighting brighter and the pricing slightly keener – but this new sibling, in keeping with its cool Collingwood location, has cocktails on its mind.
The bar this night is doing a brisk trade in shaking and stirring those araks into such twisted classics as an arak mule or raki Sazerac, while a United Colours of Benetton range of negronis includes a pink strawberry-and-sumac version, a white rum and cardamom concoction and a choc orange creation (all $22 each). Fans of Maha’s signature Turkish Delight martini won’t be disappointed – ditto the signature 12-hour slow roasted lamb ($42) and famous Turkish Delight doughnuts to end ($16).
But the rest of the menu marches to its new northside beat with veg and vegan options aplenty.
Maple sticky-harissa hot roasted carrots come on a cloud of expectedly terrific hummus doused in burnt butter for double deliciousness, a basket of Baker Bleu bread on dunking duties ($14).
There’s asparagus teamed with almonds and yoghurt seasoned with a sprinkling of fried sujuck ($16), and a shish made from oyster mushrooms that teams the meaty, smoky fungi with toum – a Levantine sauce of urgently pungent raw garlic heat. With a few pine nuts and punchy pickled onions, it’s a confident, unapologetically bold dish that’s outrageously good ($16).
More lemony toum with the Lebanese dumplings, though this time the big-hitting garlic is balanced with a terrific tomato sumac that’s sprinkled across the chewy little nuggets ($28).
Mindful meat consumption comes in the form of house made bastourma, the cured wagyu slices satisfyingly smoky and fatty, little dollops of ricotta adding creaminess to the excellent, rich tomato sauce underneath ($18).
The one-time hip hop-blaring fast food shop has been cleverly reimagined, with stool seating around that twinkling bar, a supremely comfortable leather banquette running the length of the thin long space, with one booth for six among the tables for duos and double dates. Super cool graphics from Lebanese/French artist Raphaelle Macaron add colour to the retro wood-panelled walls. It’s elegant and buzzy when busy without being, “sorry, what did you say?”
And underneath, there’s a big bluestone cellar filled with worldly, interesting and often whistlingly marked up wines. There’s nothing much under $70 a bottle – which makes BYO on Mondays and Tuesdays for $20 a pop enticing – and while the by-the-glass list is limited (and just shy of breaking the $20 mark) they will, if you ask nicely, crack into bottles from the list and charge by the glass.
It opens up the list for exploration; I can highly recommend teaming a glass of a surprisingly meaty Macedon gamay from Lyons Hill Estate ($90 a bottle, or $18 glass) with the duck also from the ranges.
With a deeply seductive, sticky rich sauce that shows an old-school reverence for technique, the pink, satisfyingly gamy slices of breast meat crowned with a sliver of fat are teamed with muhammara (a Syrian roasted capsicum dip). A long bastilla cigar filled with leg meat atop is the crowning glory of a terrific plate ($44).
Just as Maha carved out its niche in the city for up-market Middle Eastern so, too, does its north-side sibling. It’s like nothing else in the area.
So come for the buns, stay for some fun, Maha Bar brings the sexy back to Smith St.
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MAHA BAR
86 Smith St, Collingwood
Open: Mon-Thurs from 5.30pm; Fri-Sun from noon
Go-to dish: Borek buns
Score: 14.5 / 20