It’s Lebanese food but not as we know it at flashy newcomer, Nour, in Surry Hills

Address: 490 Crown St,

Surry Hills

Phone: 9331 3413

Web: noursydney.com

Food: Modern Lebanese

Score: 14.5/20

Ibby Moubadder said some interesting things before he opened Nour recently.

“The Lebanese restaurants in Sydney all have the same menu and it’s very stereotypical,” the Lebanon-born restaurateur said. “When you go there, you know the menu and the design of the restaurant.” And: “I wanted nothing that resembled a Lebanese restaurant. I wanted it to be new — a collision of cultures and ideas and techniques.” Well, suck on that, Lebanese chefs of old.

There is, in fact, already a movement in Sydney dining towards the flavours of the Middle East. Chefs with backgrounds from Lebanon, Cyrpus, Turkey and Israel are reinventing the food of their homelands (or of their parents’ homelands) and offering this sun-kissed food not as we know it but newer and cooler. Perhaps the pick are Kepos Street Kitchen (Israeli), Stanbuli (Turkish) and Barzaari (Cypriot). Nour, then, is another in the genre; part of a scene making traditional venues look dowdy.

So don’t go expecting old-school dips with pita bread, charcoal chicken and fattoush in a room decorated with Persian carpets. Rather, Moubadder has put his money where his mouth is, employing Israeli chef Roy Ner and Palestinian chef Nader Shayeb, and splashing out on an extravagant fitout by hot design outfit DS17.

The restaurant, in the old Tokonoma site, is huge, white, industrial, with several dining and drinking spaces.

Foodwise, start with small plates of, say, baby prawn falafel ($18), a dish comprising a trio of prawns wrapped in a chickpea falafel mixture and offered with smoked black tahini and coriander. It’s a fantastic starter — the flavours familiar, but twisted and brightened.

You could opt, alternatively, for ox tail with black chickpeas ($19), or hummus with za’atar-smoked goat and pomegranate ($21), but as everyone else is ordering octopus tentacle ($27), cooked over charcoal and offered with a scattering of sliced olives, pencil fennel fronds and a warming harissa oil, you should too. It is pliable and smoky, the drizzle of spicy oil just enough.

For vegos, or those leaning that way, there is good eating to be had here. A “From the Garden” section is strong — think a half charcoal-grilled eggplant ($21) with pickled green tomatoes, or wood-fired pumpkin ($22) with goat’s labne.

The meat dishes, meanwhile, include lamb shoulder with lamb’s tongue and mograbiah ($39) or an excellent grilled half chicken ($36) with zucchini and smoked fennel butter. The latter, heady with garlic and redolent of the barbie, is succulently delicious.

It’s all very flashy, to the point that the cooking is sometimes less easy and effortless than it is at many of its contemporaries. Not for Nour the wondrous, generous salads of Kepos Street Kitchen. Rather, some of the dishes seem insubstantial — too many shards, fronds and soils, too much MasterChef contestant — when more rusticity would have worked far better. A Middle Eastern bombe alaska ($16), cold and highly constructed is, to wit, a study in concept over execution.

Still, there is some very good eating to be had at Nour. Is it as new and cool as Moubadder thinks it is? I’m not entirely sure.

twitter: @lizziemeryment