It doesn’t feel like the doors at Aalia have only been open for a week, due perhaps to the serious hospitality pedigree that runs in the blood of this hotly anticipated Sydney CBD newcomer. Restaurateur Ibby Moubadder, who co-founded Esca Hospitality group (Nour, Henrietta Chicken, Lilymu) and Executive Chef Paul Farag (Monopole, Fish Butchery and Nour) waited out two lockdowns to (finally) open their new Middle Eastern smart-casual diner, which is the culmination of their crack hospitality experience as well as Farag’s Egyptian heritage and Moubadder’s Lebanese background. 

Farag takes diners on a full-throttle tour of the Red Sea coastline and surrounds, whizzing past Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Oman, Lebanon, Syria and Sudan. His menu is doing for the Arabian and North African coastline what Yotam Ottolenghi did for the Middle Eastern cuisines bordering the Mediterranean. 

“It’s designed to feel like travel,” says Farag. “We want to make people curious about the menu, we want them to ask questions.”

And there will be questions, but that’s no problem as the impeccably trained waitstaff are armed with an insightful knowledge of the menu. While it combines modern technique with Arabic tradition, the menu has not been dumbed down for the Antipodean diner who does not come from the streets of Cairo, or Jeddah or Beirut. In fact, Farag recorded himself pronouncing dishes such as waraq simsim, kawera iskender and eggplant mes’a’hawa so the staff could get their tongues around the menu before Aalia set sail (one waiter admitted to listening to the hour-long recording while at the gym!). 

So, what exactly is waraq simsim? It’s Farag’s ode to the sea urchin of the Red Sea – and the most innovative and exciting dish I’ve eaten this year. A heart-shaped, forest-green sesame leaf is so glossy it appears to be painted on to the plate. A puck of cumin-spiced aged rice is shaped at one end with a creamy golden urchin resting on top, ready to be rolled into a dolma. “I used sesame leaf instead of a traditional vine leaf because it’s softer and brings a new flavour,” says Farag.

Kawera iskender is a play on Turkey’s ubiquitous dish of doner kebab meat served on pita bread. Farag subbing the meat for bone marrow and adding pickled young walnuts for bite. Eggplant mes’a’hawa is perhaps the most humble dish on the menu, an Egyptian classic of slow-cooked tomato and eggplant that Farag remembers his father making for him as a child. The rich flavour and thick consistency is somewhere between agrodolce and ratatouille, and as we use torn chunks of puffy khorasan pita to mop the glossy eggplant directly from the serving bowl, we’re transported to the chef’s home kitchen with share plates laid out in the middle of the table.

For mains we antagonise between Murray cod masgouf, inspired by the national dish of Iraq, the whole fish butterflied, glazed with turmeric and cooked over coals; Tassie rock lobster served with amba shatta green mango chutney; and lamb neck shawarma served with tarator, pickles and Saida saj. The lamb is served on the bone, meltingly tender with crispy charred edges. The saj, a crepe-like flatbread from the Levant, is tucked around the unctuous stack of meat to soak up the juices and act as a vessel – there is no need for cutlery here. Farag ‘s interplay of comfort food and innovative, modern dishes creates multiple crescendos in the journey he is captaining.

While it’s easy to be enthralled by the food on the plate and the wine in the glass (the B-Qa Rosé from Bekka, Lebanon, is a solid match for the itinerary of flavours), Aalia’s interior is also a key part of the journey. Designed by Aussie architect Matt Darwon (who designed Automata, Toko and Pony), the natural textures, warm lighting and sculptural mushroom-like curves of the ceiling are reminiscent of Harry Seidler’s Modernist MLC Centre visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a soft, inviting space that has the same warm welcome of Farag’s lamb shawarma and nostalgic eggplant, and the sculptural wow of the waraq simsim to remind you that this is something worth leaving home for.

Related review: Pellegrino 2000 has opened in Surry Hills and it’s pasta-tively amazing