The family-run bar our critic would be stoked to have on his own street

Previous SlideNext Slide

Film prequels rarely live up to expectations created by the original: The Phantom Menace. The Hobbit. The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. A restaurant prequel, though? Let’s do it. I’d never heard of the concept until Emma’s Snack Bar owner, Anthony Sofy, described his new venture, Mixed Business, as a prequel when it opened in early May.

The bar is an upstairs revamp of an Enmore corner site that has enjoyed 55 years of stewardship by the Sofy family. Anthony’s parents, Lebanese migrants George and Emma, opened an actual mixed business at the address in 1970; Emma started serving Lebanese food at the shop in the 1980s and Anthony took over as chef in 1999. The space eventually became Emma’s Snack Bar, a lone restaurant among Liberty Street’s residential terraces.

If you’re an inner-west local who’s into hummus, falafel and house-made sausages, you likely already know Emma’s intimately. The tight-packed space is invariably pumping with at least three generations of regulars, thanks to competitive prices, BYO and minimum-fuss, flavour-charged food. I once had a girlfriend who lived in Stanmore and, more or less, lived off Emma’s lamb and pine nut-filled lady fingers for six months.

Mixed Business is a “prequel”, not just because it celebrates George and Emma’s original shop: the family also used to live here. The bathroom – handsomely decorated with caramel tiles and an Arabic For Your Eyes Only poster that I dearly need for my own Roger Moore collection – was Anthony’s childhood bedroom. His own kids – George, 22, and Charlie, 20 – now help run the bar.

It’s more spacious than Emma’s below, but still feels homely, thanks to dozens of Sofy family photos and frames straight from the 1988 Copperart Christmas catalogue. There’s wood panelling, vinyl chairs and custom-made ashtrays that function as bowls for mixed nuts. Bartender Jimmy Pollestad has put together an approachable drinks list of classics, highballs and house cocktails, such as an amaretto and arak spritz.

Pop in for a martini and a plate of olives and cucumber, or wrangle dinner out of a short menu doing its own Aussie suburban thing and separate to the carte downstairs.

A fried chicken sandwich is made on soft, good-on-ya-mum white bread and spread thick with toum, annually voted the world’s most garlicky garlic sauce for the past two centuries.

Puffy, crunchy, salt-and-vinegar potato scallops are nostalgia made manifest; fries come with a deeply delicious curry gravy you’ll feel inclined to dip your sandwich into, too.

“Kon’s spicy feta”, baked with charred bullhorn peppers, tastes a little bit Super Supreme pizza, a little bit backyard Greek barbie. Jatz crackers make an appearance on the side.

Golfball-sized beef and lamb koftas are appropriately juicy and your go-to with a $13 pour of the house shiraz that’s served in a wine glass so thick it could be a real-world Cluedo weapon.

The cheffiest dish is mahalabia milk pudding covered in a ragtag mix of nuts, sour cherry, buttery crumble and fudge-like chocolate halva. Texture five ways to Sunday.

Meanwhile, I’d come back just for the light and creamy atayef pancakes, folded like empanadas and filled with orange blossom-tinged ricotta. A beaut little way to cap off an evening, perhaps with a stove-top coffee or nicely done whisky sour.

Like any good mixed business, the Sofy family’s new spot is made to service different needs and occasions. If there’s ever a sequel, I’d be stoked to have it on my own street.

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

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine