Hummus king Tom Sarafian’s debut restaurant finally lands in Melbourne

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Named for young-gun chef Tom Sarafian’s grandfather, Zareh is an elegant 40-seater spotlighting his Armenian and Egyptian heritage. Sarafian will work alongside his brother and cousin, helping out with dips production and front-of-house, respectively. The fit-out emulates their grandparents’ house, from burgundy tiles to an identical amber-glass sliding door.

The ever-evolving menu will traverse Sarafian’s roots, weaving in influences from the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean, as well as his training in London. Sarafian’s “death-row dish” is manti, Armenian style. Here he’s baking the teeny-tiny, meat-stuffed dumplings until crunchy, then splashing them with a tomato broth that the bottom soaks up while the top stays crisp. They’re dressed with garlicky labneh and Aleppo chilli from Tasmania’s Fat Carrot Farm.

Ghapama – an Armenian dish “so iconic they sing songs about it” – is a hollowed-out heirloom pumpkin filled with rice, nuts and dried fruit that’s cooked in the wood oven. “Magical” chicken wings are charcoal-grilled then wood-fired in a claypot, with copious amounts of Sarafian’s own toum, lemon and coriander. It also wouldn’t be a Sarafian restaurant without his signature hummus, adorned with Fraser Isle spanner crab and Mooloolaba prawns.

Completing the equation is arak, the anise spirit, specially imported from Lebanese producer Farid. There are three – OG, coffee, za’atar – to have neat or with a splash of sparkling water, which isn’t traditional, Sarafian says, but enhances the flavour. A bracing arak-spiked martini comes with the optional (but arguably essential) add-on of a gilda.

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