Nestled on a busy four-lane road opposite a petrol station in a strip of mostly empty shopfronts, Pazar nails what most restaurants try to achieve and often fail at – feel-good food served in a relaxed setting that feels a little underground and a little off the beaten track without being pretentious or trite or overpriced. Chef/owner Attila Yilmaz describes the menu at his popular Canterbury Road eatery as a Turkish-Mexican mash-up, but there’s certainly more influence from the Med than Mexico City. And that’s a good thing, not that we don’t love the watermelon and Oaxacan cheese salad, or candied habanero walnuts livening up a party of roasted beetroot and whipped feta.

The bold flavour combinations and overall freshness of Pazar’s veg-strong menu are reminiscent of the school of Ottolenghi, so much so that an ember-blackened wedge of pumpkin adorned with pepita chimichurri and an avalanche of feta has me scanning the open kitchen to double-check Yotam is not hiding behind the wood-fired oven.

Yilmaz says the menu is inspired by his travels, and he clearly loves summers in the Med. First stop is maple-smoked labne with a moreish sweet-savoury spiced apricot and eggplant jam served with a hot, puffy round of wood-fired pide – an ode to Turkey and a lesson in self-restraint, because you’ll want to save room for the herb and zucchini fritters with sumac yoghurt, and charred broccoli with muahammara, a classic Levantine dip made from roasted capsicum and ground walnuts.

After the blitz of innovative veggie share plates, I fear the harissa-roasted chicken could be an anticlimax. But it’s a bomb. Atomic. Spice-brined, then marinated for 24 hours, then slow-cooked before a final scorch next to the embers in the wood-fired oven, this is a lesson in how to extract maximum flavour and tenderness from a chook. If the pumpkin wasn’t so damn delicious, this would be the dish of the night.

While Pazar means marketplace in Turkish, with its low-fi warehouse interior, surprising drinks list featuring Turkish drops and local craft beers, and innovative produce-first menu, Aladdin’s cave would be a more fitting analogy.