It’s been 8 years since Ibby Moubadder made Middle Eastern food cool again with his ferociously popular Surry Hills restaurant, Nour. Now, the restaurateur hopes to take his modern Lebanese diner into a new era with ex-Stanbuli chef Ibrahim Kasif.
I’m seated in Nour’s private dining room, one curtain lift away from a bustling dining room filled with pretty pastels, life and laughter as couples work their way through the restaurant’s newest menu written by Ibrahim Kasif.
The new head chef steering Nour in a new direction is a big deal. For years, Kasif worked up beautiful Turkish flavours at the now-shuttered Stanbuli. The colourful restaurant, a masterclass in consistency and authenticity, sadly closed in 2022 and, aside from a few well-received pop-ups, Kasif’s presence in the kitchen was sorely missed.
So him teaming up with Nour is an exciting prospect. Kasif has already demonstrated a knack for precision, taking a studious approach when working with the sharp, punchy flavours that Middle Eastern cuisine is known for.
His dishes are delicately layered and take a more fine-casual approach than what one would usually expect from a Lebanese restaurant. There’s no rowdy shared feasts with people fighting over tears of pita bread, desperately scooping up baba ganoush and chewing through piping hot shish kebab.
Kasif’s dishes are dainty and packed full of flavour with interesting new ideas testing the boundaries of Middle Eastern cuisine. Nour still has those big, irresistible flavours but gone are star dishes like prawn shish barak with fermented chilli butter and yoghurt, replaced by even bolder options like woodfired stuffed mussels ($8.50 each) with pinenut rice and indulgent chicken fat butter.
The new menu ain’t cheap, but it sure is delicious.
The crispy bite-sized batara hara ($9.50 each) with toum shaves the spice of a traditional batara hara for an approachable, perfectly textured modern version. Kasif switches up Nour’s signature charcoal octopus skewer ($16 each) with a simple whipped roe emulsion and parsley dressing for a more garden-fresh approach similar to how the Greeks do it. The raw kingfish tabbouleh ($32) is a stroke of genius and the menu’s best new item, with two large sesame leaves covering a full-flavoured salad of diced raw kingfish mixed with tabbouleh and horseradish cacik.
It doesn’t all hit. Some beef nayyeh ($34) with oyster cream, chilli oil and giaveri caviar is nice and creamy, but not as interesting as Kasif’s other ideas. A generous serving of dry aged half duck mishwe ($69) with bahrat and Ottomon quince has flavour but it’s thin and pales in comparison to the woodfired mushrooms ($29) with burnt leeks and walnut muhammara.
They say a chef is much more impressive if they can work up new angles to vegetarian dishes, so I’m more interested in the supporting plates like a deliciously light and vibrant mountain salad ($24) with green olives, pomegranates, walnuts and pistachios.
Curtains close with a tahini parfait ($19) with mastic cream and macadamia baklava. The log-like dessert is satisfying but Middle Eastern desserts are almost always more interesting when they start playing around with juicier, fresher flavours. The rosewater soaked cookie with lemon curd, coconut labneh and passionfruit perhaps would have been a better showcase for Kasif’s creativity.
What to order at Nour
I suggest the following three dishes as part of any feast at Nour.
- Woodfired mussels with pine nuts and chicken fat butter ($8.50 each)
- Raw kingfish tobbouleh ($32)
- Woodfired mushrooms with burnt leeks and walnut muhammara ($29)
Nour
Address: 3/490 Crown St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
Contact: (02) 9331 3413
Opening Hours: Monday – Wednesday (5:30pm – 8:30pm); Thursday – Saturday (12pm – 2:15pm, 5:30pm – 9pm); Sunday (12pm – 2:30pm, 5pm – 8pm)
Price Guide: $$$
