Bayte

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56 Johnston Street, Collingwood, 9415 8818

My score: 3.5/5

Bayte (say ‘bait-ee’) means home in Lebanese and I don’t think there’s anything more homely than the flatbread here, baked to order, branded with the grill then piled up like a rumpled doona to serve. The bread is a brilliant scoop for the smashed broad bean dip and a palate-smoothing sop for the bitey pickled cauliflower, fennel and turnip plucked from big jars lined up in the rustic interior. Vintage railway luggage racks holding old suitcases tell of immigrant journeys, a man-and-donkey mural in the sheltered courtyard speaks of peasant repasts.

The food is Middle Eastern but with a contemporary Melbourne spin – owner and chef Julie Touma worked at restaurants including Centonove in Kew and Babalu in Lorne before she decided to riff on the Lebanese food she grew up with at her own little place. Bayte opened 18 months ago but it’s only since a liquor license came through in May that the focus has swung from brunch to dinner.

A vegetable menu section finds thrills aplenty in meat-free dishes. Roast carrots are tumbled with honeycomb, asparagus is dressed with muhammara (red pepper dip), cos lettuce is grilled until it starts to go raggedy then drizzled with tahini and scattered with walnuts, currants and dehydrated onion crisps. If you eat animal, you might as well accept it and order the raw lamb kibbeh. Finely diced backstrap, soaked burgul (cracked wheat), sumac, allspice, fresh mint and shallots are moulded into a gleaming ovoid and rested on housemade labne (hung yoghurt). The dish is rich but so delicate and there’s honour in the full attention that raw flesh demands of the diner.

These flavours are smashing with arak, a distilled spirit flavoured with anise and usually mixed with water and ice. Flip to the end of the wine list to find it. Beer is good too: try the 961 range from Lebanon. Breakfast is served only on weekends: the menu nudges diners away from Melbourne orthodoxy and towards Middle Eastern dishes such as semolina pancake with rosewater syrup and the Lebanese version of Vegemite on toast: carob and tahini spread on charred flatbread.

Bayte doesn’t enjoy the passing trade or brand-new-glow of some of its compadres on nearby Smith Street but it’s worth a Johnston Street jaunt to fall into its warm embrace.

See their website.

More vegetable victories:

Casa Ciuccio, 15 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 8488 8150
The coal pit gets the glory at this welcoming donkey-themed restaurant but the vegetable dishes can be just as heroic. You might eat broad beans with cucumber and labne or pickled cauliflower with broccolini and chilli.

Famish’d, 555 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 9614 4905
Pushing the city salad bar to better places, Famish’d serves its own creative combos and lets diners craft their own (no onion, extra broccoli, please!). Also 130 Little Collins Street.

The More The Better, 305 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick, 9043 3204
This Korean diner is small but the flavours are big. Surely ‘kimchi slaw’ is all you need to hear? Great lunch boxes too.

First published in The Age, December 15, 2013.