Nour Restaurant: Brunch REVIEW

If you're a Middle Eastern food aficionado, you'll be keen on ANY interpretation of it... for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Enter the just launched Nour brunch, at this popular Sydney restaurant.

Mention modern Lebanese food to a Sydney foodie, and it's a given they've eaten at Nour! Everyone in the know knows this popular restaurant now.

With the new brunch menu at this now famed eatery, it opens a whole new audience ready to start off their Sunday right.

The new Nour brunch menu is designed to be shared, as is custom in Middle Eastern tradition.

With generous portion sizes, Nour suggests choosing four dishes to share between two guests.

You know when your eyes are bigger than your stomach? Yes... that is what you'll experience when ordering from the Nour menu.

Here is what we ate, then keep reading for the full Nour brunch menu below. Bonus: they have alcohol share teapots for brunch. YES PLEASE!

My young guest (my 11 year old daughter Estella - and I highly recommend this experience over a high tea for a lazy Sunday!) and I shared this:

House sujuk and stretched curds, $18

The delicious Shanklish, which is sheep's milk cheese typical of Levantine cuisine (formed into bigger than bite size balls), served with boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, mint, olives, $18

The signature Nour brunch falafel crumpet, tahini, pickled onion, soft boiled egg, parsley, $14

Batata harra, fried potatoes, toum, coriander, green chilli, $18

Finished with the delicious Lebanese atayef, ashta, pistachio, and orange blossom persimmon (for a non persimmon lover, kinda hating it when my very Italian mamma tried to force feed me this unusual fruit and failed... yet Nour has won this battle!), $19

Batata harra, fried potatoes, toum, coriander, green chilli, $18 - so more-ish and delicious and a must try!

We had a cheeky glass of Shiraz to go (brunch at Nour finishes at 1.30pm, so don't judge!) but the lovely people next to us ordered one of the booze-laced teapots and they were kind enough to allow us to shoot it, and taste some... SO GOOD!

We tried the Tanqueray Gin teapot: lemon myrtle, nettle leaf, peppermint, thyme, liquorice root infuse, $36.

Or the Bulleit Bourbon: Baharat, apple juice reduction, vanilla, mint, Earl Grey tea, $36.

Your other drink options (what's a brunch if it's not also boozy!) are:

'The Bottomless' - Add 90min bottomless Nour Bellini for $30 with a set menu Add 90min bottomless Rose for $30 with a set menu.

Or, the brunch cocktails:

Grape Spritz, $18

Antica Formula vermouth, date and grape molasses, topped off with Prosecco

Blossom Pipe, $20

Ketel one Citron, Aperol, cardamom pineapple, agave, blossom orange

House Bloody Mary, $19

Ketel One vodka, harissa, spiced tomato juice, citrus

Smoked Mary, $20

Tanqueray Gin, smoked tomato juice, citrus

Espresso Martini, $19

Ketel One vodka, Kahlua, espresso,cinnamon

OR: try the mocktails!

The Huba, $12: Pineapple juice, coconut, cardamom, basil, citrus

Persian Virgin Mojito, $12: Persian lime infuse, moroccan mint, fresh lime, soda

The other equally worthy brunch menu items are:

House pita bread, $4

Saj bread, $4

Manoushe (cooked to order in the woodfire oven, and served with pickles: 

Kishk and tomato, $16

Za’atar and olive oil, $13

Tomato, smoked almond tarator, salted barberries, pickled garlic, $17 

Kifta nayyeh, wood roasted chilli, walnuts, mint, egg yolk, lavosh, $26 

Warm hummus, chickpeas, burnt butter, $15

Eggplant fatteh, warm yoghurt, crisp bread, nuts, burnt butter, $19

Ful medammes, braised fava beans, crumbed smoked, egg, herbs, $19 

Baalbek fried eggs, lamb awarma, tahini yoghurt, almonds, flatbread, $23 

Chopped salad, tomato, zucchini, bullhorn pepper, smoked stringy haloumi, vine leaves, $18 

Spatchcock, kishk, grilled peppers, garlic, charred lemon, $39 (we are trying this next time, this was from the other lovely people at the table next door):

Honey brined wagyu pastrami, kohlrabi pickle, charred, eggplant puree, bay leaves, $48 

Mujaddara, aged rice with lentils, crispy onion and lemon, $18

Fried cauliflower, roasted grapes, smoked almond crumb, ras el hanout, smoked labne, $22 

Knafeh, rose and orange blossom syrup, pistachio, cardamom ice cream, $20 

Petit foursome, $3 each

Really hungry, and find it hard to choose. Go the banquet!

BANQUET MENU 1, $45pp

Saj bread

Shanklish, boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, mint, olives

Eggplant fatteh, warm yoghurt, crisp bread, nuts, burnt butter Manoushe cooked to order in the wood oven served with pickles Lebanese atayef, ashta, pistachio, orange blossom persimmon

BANQUET MENU 2, $69pp

House pita bread

Warm hummus, chickpeas, burnt butter

Falafel crumpet, tahini, pickled onion, soft boiled egg, parsley Eggplant fatteh, warm yoghurt, crisp bread, nuts, burnt butter Spatchcock, kishk, grilled peppers, garlic, charred lemon Batata harra, fried potatoes, toum, coriander, green chilli Nougat, lokum, mafrouke

Run, don't walk for this menu!

We stayed for ages simply because the food is delicious, the ambience is so lovely, and the service... absolutely TOP NOTCH!

Claudio our waiter was flawless and so lovely and attentive, yet unobtrusive. Hillary was so wonderful also and the perfect hostess. The GM on the floor Peter was also personable and efficient and so welcoming.

We met the charming and impossibly handsome Ibby Moubadder from 'My Kitchen Rules' too - who runs Nour, as 'MKR' fans would know.

More on the philosophy behind Nour, taken from their website:

     

Nour is built on a dream of presenting classic Lebanese flavours in a fresh, exciting way. We’ve all seen what the beautiful tangy tenors of pomegranate molasses do for a salad, we know that we can mould meat on a stick and cook it over coals to make it pack a punch of flavour and all power to the sultry eggplant that shines when dressed as baba ganoush.

Why then, would we deem to adapt that which has worked for decades?

Because we think you deserve to know what the little country on the Mediterranean has hiding in its Cedar branches. Take a leap outside of the box while your eyes flirt with our beautiful, contemporary interior and your senses are set alight. You think you know Lebanese food but we want to show you the surface is yet to be scratched and there is so much more to offer.

At Nour, we take classic Lebanese flavours and playfully tease out their full potential. Who said falafel has to roll to the same old beat, meal after meal? Why does eggplant only get to hang out smashed with tahini? Don’t you think the humble vine leaf deserves to encase a little mystery once in a while? We use an unrestricted approach to create food and cocktails that are vibrant and bold, yet familiar and comfortable. So dive in and lose yourself to a feast of enchantment that you’ve never tried before.

Book brunch (or come for an intimate dinner for two) now! See the whole brunch menu HERE.

For more on Nour, go HERE.

Address: Shop 3, 490 Crown Street, Surry Hills

Phone: 02 9331 3413

Follow them on Facebook HERE.

And on Instagram HERE.

Keen on private room dining? Nour has that too!