Nomad Melbourne review: Wood-fire cooked dishes taste as good as they smell

The much-hyped Melbourne outpost of Sydney’s famed Nomad restaurant is finally open — and there’s a lot to love about it.

Kara Monssen

3 min read

December 7, 2021 - 12:57PM

You’ll smell Nomad before you see the restaurant. Picture: Ian Currie

Food

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Nothing gets the tummy rumbling faster than the aroma of dinner on a neighbourhood stroll.

Cheesy lasagne bubbling away in the oven, the sweet BBQ sizzle on a balmy summer’s night.

You may get the same feeling before eating at Nomad Melbourne – you’ll sniff it before you see it.

Let that wafty woodfire fragrance reel you in like a floating cartoon character with its nose to the scent, through the city streets to the Adelphi Hotel bunker where the Melbourne outpost of the Sydney favourite lives.

Think fire-powered Mediterranean eats sprinkled with Middle Eastern influence, using only the very best produce. Oh and freakin’ big flavours.

This is how owners Al and Rebecca Yazbek and executive chef Jacqui Challinor made their mark at Nomad Sydney and how they plan to win hearts here. One taste and you’ll understand.

Start with the Sydney signature burrata ($24), in which a bulging bulb of Floridia cheese from Thomastown wades in olive oil and a sticky, sweet fennel jam.

It’s the fennel astringency and unrelenting creamy curd that makes it for me.

Pickled mussels perched atop a slick of toum. Picture: Ian Currie

Flatbread, burrata and charcuterie. Picture: Ian Currie

Light sheets of duck mortadella ($12), a graduate of Nomad’s in-house charcuterie program, are another strong snack. While this meat is on exchange from Sydney’s kitchen, you can expect cured cuts sliced to order in Melbourne next month.

Smoke-kissed, pickled mussels ($22) perched atop a slick of toum (garlic sauce) and perfectly formed hash brown disc is a real firecracker dish. Explosive, salty and garlicky toum tang, teamed with supple Tasmanian mussels and that golden crunchy hash brown is wickedly good.

I would suggest using the baked-to-order flatbread, which looks like a puffy fat frisbee, for the mop-up, but you’ll probably eat that as soon as it lands.

Word of warning: You will fill up fast with a couple of entrees and the bread, but don’t let the sweats scare you off larger plates.

A Melbourne creation, the dry-aged pork cutlet ($50), is incredible. Millimetre-fine crisp crackle, perfectly cooked flesh and melty fat, teamed with a raisin and caper sauce nails the salty-sweet brief – and works even better with a fennel salad on the side.

Share between two, or take home the rest for a leftover lunch. Nomad is big on zero waste. You won’t even spy straws in the cocktails.

The Murray cod is cooked in preserved grapevine leaves. Picture: Ian Currie

The dry aged pork cutlet. Picture: Ian Currie

The punches keep coming with the sustainably farmed Murray cod ($60), which is cooked in preserved grapevine leaves, coated in an indulgent saffron butter and lifted by crunchy asparagus and pea. Yum.

But the biggest OMG moment comes from pastry chef Casey Mendez’s (ex-Tonka) mango macadamia dessert ($18).

Our switched-on waiter says the dish won her the job at Nomad – and I’m not surprised.

Cleansing, fresh mango cubes and lime granita cut through a buttery macadamia ice cream that’s so indulgently creamy you’ll be surprised to learn it’s vegan.

Challinor’s signature stalwart olive oil dessert is another must.

Perhaps I’m most impressed at how much lighter and brighter the space is, compared to the dark den of its predecessor, Ezard. There are tan timber tabletops, brown leather booths and a soft baby blue marble island bench in the room’s centre.

There’s a lot to love about Nomad Melbourne — the way Challinor champions great produce, while delivering an almighty sucker punch of flavour, the approachable drinks list and the vibe.

It’s one of the more exciting restaurant openings this year, a feast for the senses, which looks and tastes as good as it smells.