Tulum in Melbourne’s Balaclava adds twist to Turkish tradition
You might need a dictionary to make sense of the menu, but don’t let that put you off.
Tulum, Melbourne. Address: 217 Carlisle St, Balaclava, Victoria, (03) 9525 9127. Hours: dinner, Tues-Sat. Score: 3.5 out of 5
Lakerda? Pirasa? Torik? I know, I know, it looks like such a friendly, stylish little place, Tulum, all renovated deep/narrow shop space in a dynamic part of inner Melbourne, and then they put stuff like this on the menu. Don’t let it put you off; besides vocab that strays from the path of familiarity, newly opened Tulum is in fact that most familiar thing to so many: the small, chef-owned and run suburban restaurant. Albeit in a suburb that is going gangbusters with every form of youth-oriented food and beverage business you can think of.
The pitch: “Tulum restaurant is not about kebabs and dips. (The) food is both earthy and refined, traditional and modern. It brings together recipes of my childhood memories and modern Anatolian cooking which is not restricted to the Ottoman cuisine.” So says Tulum’s Coskun Uysal, the chef and proprietor of this eating option in frenetic Carlisle Street, Balaclava. Modern this may be, but Uysal sticks to a few important traditions: the restaurant produces its own organic vinegars, tahini and yoghurt. Just like the chef’s mum back in Turkey, they do all their own preserving, smoking, curing and pickling.
The reality: Tulum is a small, chef-focused venture. While a few diners graze with glasses of arak at high tables, most do it the conventional way: tables, chairs (or banquettes. It’s a restaurant for jazz, not hip hop. Two hardworking service staff keep a tight rein on the place.
The cuisine: Whatever you’re thinking, don’t think tradition. Or rustic. Those delicious snacks you had on the street on that trip to Istanbul. Forget ’em. Tulum is about Turkish flavours and memories put through a contemporary dining filter, refined, light and feminine. The menu is tight, but lo and behold, this is not one for sharing. Wow. These dishes are pretty, constructed and balanced — like any modern food by a talented chef — with a very modern approach to contrasting textures, the raw and the cooked, and with multiple sauces or dressings.
Highlights: The restaurant’s namesake dish — tulum rezene (tulum is a traditional Turkish goat’s milk cheese) — is probably the most generous, big-flavoured choice. Not too fiddled with. Chunks of slow-roasted fennel are scattered with a pannacotta-textured tulum, dusted with olive crumbs and topped with olive crumb wafers, drizzled with a loose and light acidic orange jelly. And karides, a dish that highlights the abundant, and quite “new” fermented flavours of the Turkish kitchen, to us anyway: roasted whole prawns with tarhana, a kind of soup made with fermented grains, and Turkish pastrami. The “new” flavour spectrum continues with house-made black tahini, served with excellent pieces of duck breast, duck “pastrami”, apricot and a kind of freekeh pudding, like risotto. It’s modern food seen through a new prism. Another highlight is the value-for-money wine list.
Lowlights: Not a lowlight, but Tulum’s cured mackerel — lakerda — served with watercress puree, ayran (a yoghurt-based liquid) and whole sumac berries was excessively salty, the cure too noticeable. The dish is a keeper, but …
Will I need a food dictionary? Yes. Take your smartphone.
The damage: Starters around $18, mains around $28.
In summary: Nationally, it’s been a good year for new Turkish cuisine. Tulum’s refined, hospitality-focused approach, with new food/old flavours, is a very welcome arrow in the quiver.
More at: tulumrestaurant.com.au