From foie gras with broad beans to Southern Rock lobster with an Iraqi mango pickle, Paul Farag is changing our perceptions of what Middle Eastern cuisine is. The French-trained chef has spent his career cooking European classics and is on a mission to show diners there’s more to Middle Eastern cuisine than hummus and tabouli.

As part of American Express delicious. Month Out, the 31-year-old Executive Chef of Aalia will take guests on a culinary tour of his homeland and beyond at his New History of Arabia dinner.

The origins of fine dining are attributed to the French, but Farag points out the oldest cookbooks in the world are actually from the Middle East. “Foie gras may be French terminology, but there are stories of Egyptians being the first to start force feeding geese and ducks to produce a fatty liver after noticing it as a naturally occurring product,” he says.

Aalia opened in March to rave reviews, with delicious. deeming it “Sydney’s best Middle Eastern restaurant.” It’s easy to see why. Farag, whose background is Egyptian, is taking classic dishes and ingredients that a western palate isn’t used to and serving them in an accessible, elevated way such as the quail skewer with molokhia and barberries.

“My partner is a white Australian, the first time she had molokhia was with my mother. It’s a slimy soup, made from a green leaf grown along the Nile and is traditionally served with rice,” he said.

“I wanted to use it because you don’t see it in restaurants. I swapped the chicken with quail and served it on a skewer. I’m French-trained, so the soup is more of a velouté sauce.”

The New History of Arabia dinner will focus on the lesser-known coastlines of the Middle East, from the northern part of Mauritania in Africa into the Levant around the Mediterranean all the way to the Red Sea.

“People think the Middle East is arid desert land and forget it’s wrapped by seas, rivers and oceans. Seafood plays a huge role,” he says. Farag will share the stories behind each dish and offer diners an insight into Arabian history and culture.

As part of the dinner, head sommelier Eleonore Wulf will be pouring wines from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. It’s one of the world’s oldest wine regions and dates back to 5000 BC.

“This idea of skin contact is relatively new for us, but older wine regions kept the skin on to preserve the wine tannin and fermented it in clay vessels because they didn’t have oak available to them,” she says.

Like Farag, she wants to expand our palates and uses a 2020 Couvent Rouge viognier and sauvignon blanc as an example.

“People have firm reactions to sauvignon blanc, but this is really exciting because it’s in a different light. There’s no tropical green grassiness of New Zealand wines and it’s not as austere as Sancerre from France. The skin contact gives a more savoury, textural note,” she says.

New History of Arabia
Monday, May 23 at 6.30pm
25 Martin Place, Sydney
$190pp for four courses with cocktails and matched wines

For more details on The New History of Arabia Dinner head to delicious.com.au/dmo.