SOUK SURVIVES
So many places open and fizzle, failing to catch the imagination of diners, failing to deliver. Some are in the wrong place, or timed wrongly – too advanced, too so-last year! It hardly matters what the cause is. They are dead in the water before anyone knows they exist.
Not Souk in the City.
In a town that didn’t even know it was longing for a good authentic Moroccan restaurant, Souk is a sensational success. It helps that owner 
Omar chose the very skilled Charles Prior to mastermind the kasbah-chic interior. The multi-space interior is a moody, lamplit haven and never more so than on the occasion of the restaurant’s triumphant first birthday celebrations the other night.
Food of course has always been paramount at Souk, as it must be. Spicy tajines steaming breads, luscious dips, all those sumptuous little nibbly-things that north Africa excels at are here in profusion. Someone whispered that the menu is even better now and if the circling platters of delicacies was anything to judge by, they were absolutely right.
Everything from the shower of rose petals that greeted each guest to the indoor-outdoor wining and dining (thank goodness the weather warmed up a tad for the night) fitted the occasion. A sinuous belly dancer jiggled her beads and sequins amongst the guests, while in the convenient paved court of St Margarets outside, a pair of fire dancers twirled their flaming batons making fiery patterns against the night sky.
Each guest left clutching a gift of Souk’s own preserved lemons, which underlines that fabulous Moroccan hospitality. It was their birthday, after all, but everyone else received a present! Perhaps that is the key to Omar’s success after all. Hospitality, generosity – and the best north African food south of the equator.
MOROCCAN MAGIC
It’s not often that you enter a restaurant and are showered with rose petals. Yet it seems entirely right at Souk. The name comes from the general term for markets in Morocco, the place you go to sip super-sweet mint tea while negotiating the terms of your new carpet or as you shop for much-needed bargain bling.
In the Sydney context, however, Souk is a fairytale place of pierced silver lamp shades, intricate fretwork screens, lush cushions and candles that throw flickering shadows onto sensuous fabrics – and, we found out
in due course, absolutely traditional Moroccan cuisine.
As we settle down at our table I find myself murmuring ‘Come wiz me to ze kazbah’, without much knowing what that means, yet feeling it’s somehow appropriate here.
Owner Omar Majdi has been part of the Sydney restaurant scene for years, and this is his fifth restaurant. Most recently he ran the much-loved Tajine in East Sydney and since closing that he’s opened Souk in the swisher-than-swish St Margaret’s enclave off Bourke Street, Surry Hills.
Of all his places, this seems to provide the coming of age platform for Omar’s home-country’s cuisine. As we share a mezze plate of bread and gently spiced spinach, eggplant, and other vegetables, the one that has me returning to for seconds is the carrot, of all things. Who makes a star of carrot, for goodness sake? Yet here the pieces are subtly sweetened and indefinably spiced just enough to render them irresistible.
N
ext we share a chicken b’stilla with orange flower sauce and again the flavours are so beautifully blended there is no chance of me scribbling down the supposed recipe as we eat. Same with the lamb tajine, and the fez-shaped timbale of orange couscous that comes with the salmon. Even more elusive is a dessert-sweet dish of chicken with figs and dried quince. Just how can the chef make things taste this way?
It’s almost enough to have me racing off to a travel agent to book my ticket to Marrakech. But then I realise with relief that I can save my money, because Souk, just recently opened, is not going anywhere, and I can return here as often as I like.
SOUK in the City, St Margaret’s, Shop 5 ‘Henry’, 431 Bourke Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW. Breakfast weekends; Lunch Fri-Sun; Dinner Tues-Sat.
Bookings: 02 9357 7577, dining@soukinthecity.com www.soukinthecity.com
Parking available in the complex.
Special deals:
Tuesday Movie Night: two course menu, including a glass of white, rose or red wine, for $35pp. SOUK is conveniently located just a short stroll from the cinema strip on Oxford St.
Energy Night, first Wednesday of the month: a three course meal with a glass of white, rose or red wine for $45 a head when SOUK takes romance (and environmental awareness) to new levels by relying solely on candles for ambient lighting.
SOUK also offers innovative catering with a Moroccan experience created in your own home or a Tent Royale for the garden. In January 2008 Omar will offer his famous cookery classes once more, so we all can learn how to prepare some of those delicious SOUK special dishes!
