Sezar Restaurant

One of the things I love about Melbourne is that it is a melting pot of cuisines and cultures. Now my geographical knowledge is admittedly terrible but I had barely heard of Armenia until a few weeks ago. When my buddies suggested we go to Sezar, a restaurant with a focus on contemporary Armenian food I had no idea what to expect.

Sezar is situated in a narrow building accessed by an alleyway – so very Melbourne. Inside it is elegant and candlelit with dining on two levels.

The wine list at Sezar is surprisingly small for a city venue. There are about 12 by the glass and with about 30 more by the bottle. However the list is filled with a great range of varietals including a couple of Armenian wines. We were in the mood for red so chose the  2011 Henrich Zweigelt, Burgenland Austria ($72). Zweigelt (pronounced TSVYE-gelt) is an indigenous Austrian variety with floral and cinnamon aromatics, dark fruits and cocoa on the palate and fairly soft tannins – very food-friendly. 

The menu is broken up into small, medium, large and side dishes and is designed to be shared. 

We started with some Spinach and Fetta Boreg ($12)

Cheese wrapped in pastry is usually a safe bet but we didn’t start terribly well with these. Even as proclaimed salt lovers these were just a touch on the salty side and the amount of spinach was a little token.

Cured ocean trout – apple and fennel salad, creme fraiche and roe ($16)

A lovely dish with an excellent balance of flavours. 

Grain salad – toasted pumpkin seeds, almonds, sour cherries and labne ($15)

We were instructed to give it a bit of a stir before we dug in to disperse the creamy labne. I really enjoyed the variety of textures, but I think on this occasion the dish may have included dates instead of the sour cherry which made it a little sweeter.

Braised lamb neck – kaitaifi wrapped with sesame mayo ($16)

A absolute winner with superb rich and tender lamb. Gosh I wish I could make this magical pastry. Lovely and crispy

BBQ Eggplant – yoghurt soup, spiced walnuts, red pepper dressing ($20)

The best way to describe this dish was smoky… a little too much so. I love smoky flavours but this time it overpowered everything else.

BBQ Lamb rump – eggplant salsa, brown butter and yoghurt ($32)

The lamb was very tender but was a little plain, there was no discernible brown butter taste or aroma and the eggplant salsa really was just more of the smoky eggplant from the last dish.

Roasted barramundi – chopped prawns, falafel, spiced chickpeas and pumpkin ($30)

The fish was beautifully cooked, really moist and tender. The accompanying flavours were all nicely executed on their own but nothing really brought the dish together as a whole. Maybe this was just my lack of knowledge about Armenian food…

We also had a serve of excellent fat triple cooked chips with roasted garlic and aleppo pepper ($9).

The night had been a little up and down but I finished on a high with New style baklava – crispy filo, walnut toffee ice cream and salted caramel ($14)

It was exactly as described with thin wafers of crisp buttery  filo balanced on a perfectly balanced nutty/creamy/salty ice cream. A wonderful end to the meal and much less sweet than the traditional honey-drenched baklava.

I wanted to love Sezar. The restaurant has a lovely vibe and some of the dishes were fantastic, but there were an equal number that were just OK. Similarly the service was a little haphazard. We were seated without menus, had to ask for the wine list and again for the food menu. However, the staff were all very friendly. They may have been having an off night and I suspect that some of the wait staff were new. So much potential but the jury is still out for me.