Rumi restaurant review 2024: Kara Monssen visits Brunswick East new-look Middle Eastern favourite
At $60 a pop, everyone is ordering the “fill the table” feast at Rumi’s new Brunswick East digs. But there are plenty of new things to fall in love with at the Middle Eastern stalwart.
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Moving house is an exciting, yet painful way to mark a new life chapter.
The money, packing, heavy lifting, cardboard boxes coming out the wazoo … did I mention packing?
Chef Joseph Abboud has moved a few couches in his time. His beloved Middle Eastern restaurant Rumi, has had three homes in its 18-year life.
Three years after its 2006 opening, Rumi shifted further along Lygon St to roomier, and its most memorable, digs.
Rumi 2.0 was the setting for countless “fill the table” feasts. And for myself, a “meet the friends” date with my now-husband. See, Greek wine, lamb roasts and muhammara are solid foundations of any relationship.
After 14 years, the Abbouds decided it was time for another fresh start – and more boxes.
Keeping it local, Rumi 3.0 last December shacked up beneath new mid-rise apartments at the schmick East Brunswick Village.
Locals are a short lift ride away from Rumi, and Abboud’s new ideas factory next door, The Rocket Society bar.
In this new world, grown-up pina coladas exist without being sickly sweet and heady margarockets (mezcal and fresh lime) can fuel your night.
Snacks lean pickled, puckery or fried, and the condiments game is as strong as those drinks: house-made hummus, fries with tahinaise, breaded barramundi wings dunked in chunky toum’tare (garlic tartare) and sobering HSP (halal snack pack) croquettes.
But if you’re after the classics — and fancy paying $60 for a belt-loosening feed over two cocktails and a couple of snacks — Rumi’s your place.
White walls, exposed warehouse ceilings and floor-to- ceiling venetianed windows lighten up the joint, it’s chalk and cheese to the dated Lygon St den.
It lacks character, though, and really you could be in any new-build restaurant in Melbourne. But what makes Rumi one of the city’s most cherished restaurants isn’t the space.
It’s the cheekily shaped water jugs and joining the rhythmical “get out of your seat” chorus when there’s a birthday.
It’s seeing wife Natalie pottering around Rocket Society, or clocking their two sons washing dishes. Abboud’s dad’s garlic-peeling days are behind him, though chef Adam Ali (Maha, Bekker) is still up to his coal-stoking ways.
The saffron marinated quail kebab ($22) survives the journey over coals as juicy as ever; grape molasses and verjus, making each bite as sticky and bright as the last.
Whole green zucchinis ($18) impressively hold their form over the barbie, silky soft and doused in indulgent brown butter and tart garlic yoghurt. It’s one of a few new dishes, but it’s hard to pass on Rumi’s pièce de résistance.
The spice-rubbed lamb shoulder (add your own trimmings, $40) is as delicious a decade on, as is the fattoush ($18), fiercely fresh with an apt ratio of shattery pita crunch.
And while on memory lane, your inner kid will crack a tanty if you forgo the velvety macadamia ice cream sandwich ($16) between two flaky filo square doused with rosewater that’ll kick any baklava craving.
Though I won’t judge if you’re here for the $60 banquet — everyone else is — as it’s one of the best-value in town.
What makes a house a home? Food, family, friends. Ask Rumi. It’s been their secret to success, and why it’ll be treasured for many years to come.
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