Tulum

Chefs Coskun Uysal and Murat Ovaz inside Tulum Turkish restaurant.

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217 Carlisle Street, Balaclava, 9525 9127

My score: 4/5

Turkish chef Coskun Uysal has been visiting Australia for 10 years, doing work experience at top restaurants like Vue de Monde and Attica, and popping up at Mark Best’s Pei Modern. In between, he worked and studied in London, (Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, River Cafe, Leiths School of Food) and ran hotel dining rooms and cafes in Turkey. Uysal always found Melbourne’s food culture thrilling but also lamented that the Turkish food here is often stuck in an immigrant time warp and doesn’t reflect the exciting modern food now seen in Istanbul.

Tulum, named after a sheep’s milk cheese, is Uysal’s upbeat retort, a contemporary restaurant that shows – deliciously, successfully – that Turkish food isn’t just dips, pide and kebabs.

The restaurant has already created a sensation in Balaclava, which has great cafes and good comfort food but not much in the way of destination dining. Tulum is modest in size but ambitious in outlook. It isn’t the ideal place to bring the kids for six o’clock chow (though if you do, get them the cilbir immediately, an upscale take on Uysal’s favourite after school snack, comprising smoked yoghurt and poached egg topped with brown butter crumble and crisp shards of chicken skin). This is more a venue for grown-up eating adventures, a tasty dance through Turkish heritage, honoured and updated.

Take the karides (prawns), which paddle in tarhana, a soupy sauce made from a rehydrated crumble of dried tomatoes, capsicum and yoghurt. Tarhana is a peasant stand-by, sun-scorched on roofs across Turkey. It’s luxed up here: the prawns are big, fat and doused in garlic butter, there’s pastrami for sophisticated saltiness, and concentrated earthy, summery sourness from the tarhana.

See also the ordek (duck). Pan-fried breast is ostensibly the star of the plate but it’s the accompaniments that bring the noise. Black tahini (milled from black sesame seeds using a stone grinder), crunchy vine leaves, fennel-and-cinnamon-flavoured duck pastrami and a puree made from vinegared dried apricots combine to create a handsome dish, its powerful flavours cleverly harnessed.

Sutlac (rice pudding) is a Turkish classic, generally eaten cold. Uysal’s update is an homage to his mother’s recipe and his own impatience. He serves his sutlac warm because he could never wait for it to cool down before eating. Here, he gives it a savoury edge by adding Jerusalem artichoke, now in season, sweet, strange and succulent.

The menu is divided into small and large mezze. The dishes aren’t as easy to share as they could be, but the food is too good to keep to yourself. As the menu settles, I’d love to see a few larger platters, without falling back into mixed grill orthodoxies. More vegetarian options would be good too.

Uysal has history in delivering new experiences to great food towns. When he developed menus for Istanbul’s trendy House Cafe, he caused a sensation by introducing eggs benedict and American pancakes. Just as Istanbul went crazy for breakfast dishes it hadn’t seen before, I suspect Melbourne will throng to try Turkish food that’s rich in tradition yet sparkling with creativity.

See their website.

More Turkish:

Marmara, 68 Chapel Street, Windsor, 9510 6944.
It’s deeply traditional but it’s all nicely done. Try the imam bayildi, a classic eggplant dish that translates as ‘the priest fainted’, possibly because the food was so delicious.

Anatolia Gozleme Kitchen, Prahran Market, Commercial Road, Prahran, 0447 372 777.
Many’s the time I’ve punctuated a Prahran Market shop with a lamb borek or a fluffy spinach and cheese pide from this stall.

Alasya, 555 Sydney Road, Brunswick, 9387 0713.
Proudly old school since 1978, this massive family restaurant kicks off its mega menu with a choice of 16 dips.

First published in The Age, 29th May 2016.