Mash-ups between food and retail always seem strange when you first encounter them. I have, variously, eaten well inside an Italian-style furniture warehouse, a Scandinavian-style furniture warehouse, a barber shop, a record store and even licked fried chook off my fingers in a fried chicken-cum-sneaker shop. But food and motorcycles seem a whole new realm of bizarre when it comes to mash-ups to me. Bikes and bread?

That said, the food at Deus Cafe has always been good. Over several years it has developed a good reputation, even if it has lately fallen off the radar of the food community.

So Deus owner Dare Jennings (a Mambo co-founder) has renovated the space, and added some firepower to the kitchen, with Bucket List’s Tom Walton and Andy Rawuld taking over. There’s
a new name, new bar and a warehouse-style space with long tables for groups or shared dining, and, yes, motorbikes that lounge around attractively as if just waiting for someone to purchase them. Maybe next time.

Walton (ex-head chef, Bistro Moncur) has brought in a curious menu of what you might call modern hits. In fact it’s an odd mix that’s a bit contemporary and a bit Middle Eastern, a list on which Lebanese-style dishes like hummus ($16) and braised lamb with pita bread ($14) and a freekeh salad ($15) with roasted broccoli, hazelnuts and sumac sit alongside serious French-inclined bistro mains of grilled Cape Byron sirloin with “Cafe Deus” butter and shoestring fries ($31) and braised lamb shoulder to share ($49). This is peculiar, perhaps. Is this a Middle Eastern restaurant or a bistro? Do they coexist?

I don’t get it but it doesn’t matter because Walton (with head chef Zac Pauling) can really cook and have composed dishes so easy and enjoyable you are prepared to overlook some kooky edges.

Start with the hummus that’s a plate of creamy chickpea goodness scattered with sparkly pomegranate jewels, almonds, crumbled fetta and crisp fried whole chickpeas for crunch. Some warmed (rather than stone cold) bread to eat it with would improve it immeasurably.

Eggplant fritters ($12), meanwhile, involve soft cheeks of eggplant, whole fried, offered with a decent smoked chilli mayo. Nice.

There’s more from the Middle East via the freekeh salad, with smoky charred florets of broccoli, sultanas and pine nuts, and a tart, satisfying tahini yoghurt making an excellent and hearty dish. Turkish-style braised flatbeans ($9), next, are seriously becoming a thing in Sydney, these long beans stewed in tomato and olives until soft and more-ish. Another great dish.

You could fill up on these niceties or go for one of the protein mains or perhaps just the rather decent cheeseburger ($17), for some satisfying and kind of cool dining.

Jennings and co are guys who make spaces and products, mostly mainstream but slightly offbeat, that people enjoy and love to engage with. This is another with that same easy-does-it style. Get yourself a bike on the way out.

Originally published in dailytelegraph.com.au