Embers52 Oxford St
Darlinghurst, Sydney
What an ornate place with so much charm and atmosphere. You feel like you're stepping into another world when you walk in the door of Embers! The heritage of this building is that it used to be a bank - many years ago. It has lovely arcitecture and the interior has made it even more spectacular.
Owners Henri and Elie Azzi have created a beautiful restaurant.
The food of Charles Fisher adds even more taste and style.
The theme here is Middle Eastern food with a modern twist - and presentation is certainly just as important as well!
We started with a tasting plate put together for us to try a variety of their goodies. It had two plump juicy fresh oysters in the shell beautifully garnished. They were lovely. Then there were two spoons with a sampler of one of Embers signature dishes - scorched ocean trout with spiced tahini and fennel. This was simply delicious and had a great combination of flavours and textures. Finally there was a serving of marinated olives.
All three of these dishes were very tasty - but the scorched ocean trout was so nice we greedily grabbed a full sized serving of this as well!
We then moved on to a lovely serving of fried halloumi with honey zaater.This dish was amazing! The flavours were incredible - such a great combination that worked so well together.
Mlady is not normally a fan of honey dishes - or halloumi to be honest - but she thoroughly enjoyed this and said it was so much nicer than she could ever have imagined.
Next up was the cauliflower, chickpea and pomegranate salad.
It came with a dressing of red wine vinegar and pomegranate molasses.
It was certainly a colourful dish and so fresh and tasty as well.
Even though I'm not a huge salad eater this one was easy to enjoy - it was very light, fresh and tasty.
We then had a lovely serving of scallop nayeh.This is basically raw scallop or scallop ceviche.
We are both fans of ceviche and have ordered it from many of the restaurants we have visited.
This version came with chilli and eggplant mixed in with the pieces of scallop.
It tasted delicious and we finished every last bit of it.
This one certainly didn't disappoint us - it really did live up to our expectations - which were high!
I love duck and I will have it almost everywhere I go. Mlady says I "zero in on it" when I see it on a menu. Well this one wasn't even on the menu for Embers - yet. It was going on soon though and we had the chance to get in early to try it!This was carob glazed duck breast on wilted spinach with Dutch carrots and potato dauphinoise. It tasted great and the carob went surprisingly well. This was also a lovely mix of flavours.
If hommus is a must do for Middle Eastern food then lamb is even more of a must eat food!Embers has a lovely confit lamb shawarma with tahini sauce and pickled radish that melts in your mouth.
The lamb was delicious and the combination was fantastic. Mlady isn't a lamb eater but I devoured it - scooping it up into the bead that came with it. Just perfect!
Our next course was beef.
It was the carob glazed beef cheek with freekah grapes and sheeps milk labne.
A carob glaze may not leap off the page for some people as their first choice but it actually went really well.
The beef cheek was also slow cooked and dissolved - it was so tender.
We decided to share two of the choices - the tahini and date brulee with figs and the rose jelly sahleb cream and sumac strawberries.
They were both delicious - the brulee having quite a distinct but extremely good taste and the second dessert providing a light and refreshing combination of flavours and textures.
Then just when we thought our meal was done a night cap was suggested.
How could we say no - especially when we chose an Embers Majharita (Tequila blu, coriander, cinamon, lime and orange) and a Beirut Kiss (Vodka O, lychee, raspberry and rosewater).
It was a lovely way to end a lovely evening.
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| Chef Charles Fisher |
Tables are not crowding each other and the whole place has an open feel to it.
It's one big room with everyone enjoying themselves.
Their food comes in generous servings and has lovely flavours and presentation. It's a restaurant well worth visiting!
Sir and Mlady dined as guests of Embers Mezze Bar. Thanks to Henri Azzi for arranging our visit, the whole team at Embers for looking after us so well and to Charles Fisher for his delicious and appealing dishes.
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| The Embers crew with Henri Azzi far right |
