Why this magical, miraculous Middle Eastern restaurant is more than the sum of its parts

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You should ask Tom Sarafian about his bread. The chef, who has perhaps passed the steaming rounds of aish baladi across the counter in the open kitchen himself, will tell you about the three types of flour he sources, about the method of cooking, about how, in Egypt, where the bread has been made for thousands of years, it is traditionally left to rise in the sun.

You will want to know how he makes it taste so very wheaty, enough that you might spend 10 minutes marvelling over it as you use it to scoop up impossibly creamy hummus topped with a sweet stew of king prawns and spanner crab, an oceanic slurry you’ll be thinking about for weeks to come.

It’s dusted on one side in wheat bran, he’ll tell you, and it’s obvious he’s been thinking about this bread for a very long time, and that all of that time and obsession and attention has paid off. It tastes ancient and fresh and traditional and exciting. It tastes like confidence and personality and passion. It tastes like Zareh.

For lovers of Sarafian’s cooking, Zareh has been a long time coming. The chef, who has been cooking professionally since he was 18 here and in Europe, gained a dedicated following at Bar Saracen, and then, after that closed in early 2021, at various pop-ups and with his jarred hummus, toum and harissa. After a lot of whispers and at least one project that fell through, Zareh, his first restaurant as owner and named for his chef grandfather, opened on Smith Street in Collingwood in August.

The room is classic, timeless: a double storefront with wooden tables and chairs, and much of the seating along a kitchen counter and bar that run the length of the room. Sarafian and his crew spin and plate in front of a wood oven and charcoal pit especially designed for the space. The menu is short, a handful of snacks and only three main courses, with the heart of the menu in the middle where shareable mezze-style dishes reign.

Armenia, Egypt and Lebanon provide the underpinning, and many dishes will be familiar to regulars of Bar Saracen. But this place feels more personal, and more curated, and more singular. Lebanese funk, Armenian jazz, and other bops from across the Arab world play from a turntable behind the bar, giving the room an instant laid-back party vibe. It’s rare for music to so immediately be an integral part of a restaurant’s identity, but it’s almost always a win when that happens.

Cocktails all have the spicy sting of arak, the aniseed-flavoured spirit – this is not a restaurant trying to be all things to all people; it is just doing what it does very well. Wines are a mix of Australian and European producers, but most excitingly there are some wonderful Lebanese and Armenian labels as well, and staff who can direct you to something delicious.

Speaking of delicious, I did not encounter one flop on the menu, though there are a couple of absolute stars. That hummus and seafood number is one, but I was almost as enamoured of the kafta nayyeh, a raw lamb dish spiced so delicately it comes across as both complex and complete, topped with a layer of snappy radishes.

The lamb cutlets with harissa and labne are probably en route to signature dish status, but the vegetable mains are just as tempting, including a ful medames made with broad beans that turns the dish into almost a warm creamy kind of salad, strewn with herbs and chopped tomato.

Zareh is a product of Sarafian’s passion and talent, but it’s also deeply tied to the wider hospitality community of Melbourne. During early services, you might have found Matt Stirling – co-owner of Caretaker’s Cottage – behind the bar; former Poodle and Marion chef Josh Fry was in the kitchen for the first weeks of opening before heading to his new gig as chef at the Brandon Hotel.

There’s a sense that Zareh is the product of one person’s dream, but helped along by the collective excitement and talent of a whole community. That kind of energy seeps into the room, the food, the air. It feels good, in a way very few commercial endeavours manage.

That’s the true magic of this restaurant. It isn’t just a building with food, and I can’t give you a tidy assessment based solely on the factors reviews traditionally consider: cooking, service, drinks, atmosphere. All of those things are lovely, but the elements that make this place such a resounding success are far more ephemeral and possibly more important.

It’s so obviously a restaurant built on love – love of culture, of music, of community. Zareh is more than the sum of its parts. It feels miraculous.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.