Revenge of the 'burbs at Baba's Place

Can you hear it? It started with a muttering in Parramatta, then a murmur in Lakemba. Boosted by the shift towards working from home, the suburbs are finding their voices. 

In terms of genuinely new and interesting eating out, the next few years will be their turn to shine.

And if Baba's Place is any indication, it's going to be a fun ride. "We don't want to be transported to the Mediterranean," says co-owner Alex Kelly. "We want to be transported to Lidcombe, to Greenacre, to Chullora."

Pieced together by a bunch of first-generation Australian mates with Macedonian, Lebanese and Greek roots, Baba's Place is immediately, viscerally, familiar; like going around to your best friend's grandma's place and cracking a beer in the backyard. 

On the outside, it's just a bland red brick industrial warehouse with lace curtains over the single small front window next to the roller door. Inside, there's a bar, big open kitchen, and Turkish rugs on a concrete floor. Tables are "Sunday best", sheathed in lace and cloaked in clear plastic – because why take off the plastic coating and get things dirty? 

The menu is a pastiche from all those backyards, realised with skill and smarts. A little snack of raw cucumber dipped in lemon pepper salt is sent out gratis. There's hummus, made "X-tra" with lacto-fermented mushrooms ($18), topped with parsley oil and served with flat, chewy Afghan bread.

Head chef Jean-Paul El Tom (formerly of Butter in Surry Hills) and sous chef James Bellos hover on the pass, backed by a wall of fryers, ovens and robata grills. Things move fast here, and change as quickly. Today's giant wheel of charred cabbage ($28) could be tomorrow's eggplant ($20), served with tangy fruits, nuts and honey. Sticky chicken wings ($15) are currently steamed and robata-grilled with house-made koji, yakitori-style. They come with a hooley-dooley sauce of fermented garlic cracked caramel with turnip pickles, but they're set to change, too. (Keep the cracked caramel, lads.)

Arabic-style samak mezle of crisply fried fish ($38) comes with soft and fried flatbreads, the four red spot whiting sitting on sauce tarator escorted by shatta chilli sauce and a chimichurri-style coriander sauce in a happy mix of spice, heat and freshness. There's not much moisture in the flesh, but the sauces bring balance.

Rather than be stereotyped, the chefs bust out in celebrations of all the food they grew up eating, not just their own. So the hysterically named bouillabaisse bolognese ($34) is reminiscent of zha jiang mian, northern Chinese noodles coated with a rich, long-flavoured lamb ragu, pimped with perky pieces of fresh prawn, bacon XO and smoked koji under a cap of fresh cucumber and spring onions. It comes together naturally, the richness unforced.

Shopska ($16), a leafy, cooling salad under a shower of goat cheese, might have wandered too far from its Bulgarian/Macedonian roots to be interesting. For dessert, a magnum-sized labne parfait ($20) is icy rather than lush, striped with a winsome peanut-buttery tahini caramel.

There's a lot to love at Baba's Place – cloth doilies, water jugs filled with flowers, family photos on the wall, and great music from old popsters like Walid Toufic and the late Rachid Taha. But especially, the quiet pride in cooking food with roots, and the reclaiming of the self-professed "wog experience" by smart young industry players. 

We've seen signs of suburban pride in the Sydney dining landscape before, but this feels like an owning of something that's already ours, not an ironic spoof but simply food that has adapted, as people do, to generational change. 

There's really only one thing missing, and that's a real baba, shuffling around with a tea towel tucked into her belt, asking when you're going to have children. Until then, pull up a chair, pour a glass, break some bread. And if you're going to track dirt onto the rugs, take your bloody shoes off.

The low-down

Baba's Place 

Drinks Almaza Lebanese beer, cocktails made with rakija, a Balkan spirit from Sydney's DNA distillery, and an eccentric six-bottle wine list.

Vegetarian A handful, from hummus with Afghan bread to eggplant fruit salad.

Pro tip Turkish Damla fruit candies come with the bill.

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.