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Merivale goes Middle Eastern with venture helmed by ex-Rockpool chef Simon Zalloua

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

Chef Simon Zalloua.
Chef Simon Zalloua. Edwina Pickles

A Middle Eastern restaurant from Merivale? Put your money on it.

The Sydney hospitality behemoth already waves the flag for a United Nations of cuisines, but word on Sydney's eat streets in recent weeks has its chief Justin Hemmes plotting a culinary foray into the Middle Eastern.

And given how Merivale presented Chinese at Mr Wong and French at Felix, it has a few pulses racing.

Hemmes confirmed to Good Food the concept has a green light and he has approached Simon Zalloua, an ex-Rockpool chef of Lebanese lineage, to front it.

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There was talk it might go into the Hotel CBD site where Alastair Little recently decamped his Brit-French pop-up Little Bistro.

But Hemmes says that space is earmarked to "become more pubby" and reflect the existing offering elsewhere in the hotel.

The modern Middle Eastern eatery is headed to a new, soon-to-be named addition to the Merivale empire. And no, it isn't a pub.

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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