Nomad restaurateur Alan Yazbek charged over Nazi sign at pro-Palestine protest march
Alan Yazbek, the owner of famous hatted restaurants Nomad in Sydney and Melbourne’s Reine & La Rue, has been revealed as the protester arrested after allegedly holding up a swastika sign at a pro-Palestine rally.
The wealthy owner of the Nomad restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne has been revealed as the protester arrested after allegedly holding up a swastika sign superimposed over an Israeli flag at Sunday’s pro-Palestine rally in Sydney.
Alan Yazbek has been charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol in public after he allegedly held the sign, which bore the words “Stop Nazi Israel”.
Yazbek and wife Rebecca, an interior architect, have run the popular Surry Hills restaurant Nomad since 2013.
The Australian understands several patrons rushed to cancel bookings on Tuesday night after news of the charges spread among the Jewish community.
The couple started the business just over a decade ago with a 30-seat cellar door that became a 200-seat restaurant, with food inspired by their travels through Spain, Morocco and the Middle East and a focus on cooking over fire.
Nomad’s sister restaurant, Beau, closed this year after only 18 months, with the Yazbeks citing the downturn in restaurant trading.
The pair opened a smaller Nomad restaurant in Melbourne’s Flinders Lane in 2021 and then another, Reine & La Rue, in the Cathedral Room at the corner of Queen and Collins Streets in Melbourne’s CBD. Located in the converted 1890s neo-gothic Melbourne Stock Exchange, the French-inspired Reine & La Rue won the Best New Restaurant at The Age Good Food Guide Awards for 2024.
The couple paid $4 million for their home in the affluent eastern Sydney suburb of Woollahra in 2016 but earlier this year were reported to have bought a grand mansion in Melbourne, Hambleton House, in well-to-do Albert Park, for upwards of $11 million.
On Sunday, Mr Yazbek joined the crowd of 10,000 pro-Palestine protesters who had been given permission to march through the streets of Sydney’s CBD, but police allege the 56-year-old failed to heed warnings not to display offensive material.
After being placed under arrest, Mr Yazbek was taken to Surry Hills Police Station where he was charged and granted bail, under which he is prohibited from going within two kilometres of Town Hall, except to attend his restaurant and various business offices for work.
In a statement, Mr Yazbek told The Daily Telegraph: “So many of us have family in the region. Every loss of life is a tragedy. We’re in mourning.”
He is set to face Downing Centre Local Court on October 24.
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