Review Rosa's Kitchen - Melbourne

Bar Saracen is one of those places that make you feel at home. When you enter the staff are so kind and welcoming and the ambience of the space is perfect for the delicious degustation that is about to ensue. Head chef Tom Sarafian has nailed every single course here with great attention to detail. The spanner crab hummus is in the top 5 dishes of melbourne for me which is a big call because lots of the food on this menu deserves to be up there. Perfectly crispy skin Murray cod, flavourful toum chicken skewers, soft and succulent. The most perfect blushing red lamb with an amazing harissa sauce. We had some vegans with us who were catered to as well with a range of substitute dishes. The bar tenders are always helpful and happy to recommend drinks to match to the good. There are some absolute pearlers in the wine menu that are left of centre and different to what you would normally have. Get down here ASAP. It’s a big vibe. You will leave super full and of course super happy.

I had the okra, Persian rice and Chicken. Truly the most tasty chicken skewers I’ve ever had. Really, do try the chicken. It is unusually better than normal chicken! Okra was tasty if you are familiar with Okra’s texture. It should though be served with some sort of accompaniment. Persian rice was delicious. Highly recommend!

Been there a couple of times and the service and food are spot on. Hummus is probably the best I’ve tried so far and they now add the crab to make it even better. Fish Fatteh is a must try dish. This time I’ve tried chicken kebab and the Kashk-e-Bademjam and im just looking forward to eating there again, awesome. Looking forward to seeing this place with a well deserved Hat!

It’s now 2 out of 5. Now, I’m really confused. We went here for restaurant week and felt ripped off. For a $40 express lunch we got a flat bread and hummus plus a small service of fried okra plus a chicken kebab with a tiny bit of rice. We left very hungry and went off to buy food. A proper amount of food to make up the lunch that Bar Saracen should have given us. I’ve been going to restaurant week for many years. This is easily the most meagre and insubstantial offering we’ve ever had. Such a disappointing experience and we won’t be back. Two months earlier 4.6. This is a hidden gem. Bar Saracen is a lovely middle eastern restaurant bar tucked away unobtrusively in Punch Lane just off Little Bourke Street. It sits low key on the lane and feels somewhat private and exclusive. The establishment has a delightfully clipped menu with a range of small dishes designed for sharing. I tried several including green olives filled with labne, bullhorn peppers with pickled garlic, octopus batata harra and a herb salad. Every dish was absolutely delicious. The produce was clearly all of the highest quality. Every dish had an elegant simplicity that emphasises the freshness and superiority of the key ingredients. It was very hard to choose but my favourite dish was probably the herb salad. The greens were incredible and the dressing spectacularly good. It might one of the best salads I’ve ever had anywhere. After a chat with one of the senior staff the place began to make more sense. One of Bar Saracen’s owners owns or co owns Rumi, the outstanding East Brunswick middle eastern restaurant, and one of my favourites. The philosophy here is applied in both places. Get the best quality vegetables from specialist organic farms because good vegetables are so critical to middle eastern cuisine. The approach shows in both places as the quality is so evident in everything. This is a very good place. It’s not cheap but the quality of the food and the experience is outstanding. Highly recommended.

Let’s talk about Melbourne Food and Wine festival. Every year, at around March, the Melbourne Food and Wine festival celebrates all things gastronomy in Melbourne. One of the highlights are their restaurant express, where a number of nice restaurants in the city will feed you lunch and a drink for $40. We tried two this year, and one of them is Bar Saracen. The four of us sat down and was presented a choice of white or red wine. We are not too sure what wine it was, or what we are having, as there is no menu. The food started arriving after waiting for some time, not sure whether we would get a menu or not (we didn’t get a menu). The four of us shared one plates of Smokey hommus dip and beautiful flat bread, and also two dishes of fried okra which was surprisingly not slimey. We were then presented with four skewers of chicken on top of a small bed of rice. The chicken was beautifully cooked and tender, with lovely zucchini and the saffron rice had this nice rich smokey flavour. We waited to see whether there is more food. We had to flag down a waiter to ask. He confirmed that that’s it. A feeling of: is that it? Raced through our brains. Did we just paid $40 each for 1 glass of wine, 1/4 hummus, 1 flat bread, half a dish of okra and one skewer of chicken?! I guess we did. How disappointing.

Step up the lane and middle eastern awesomeness the Wait staff Ben Yossi and sensational... Take the advice of Yossi and have a bit of everything. Yossi has special chef dishes not on menu that are incredibly special. For couples or with a mate (I was with a mate but sent pics to my wife who will be down next visit) we had a great Croation wine bit like a dry shiraz on steroids followed by a serious tasty soft tones of a perfectly ripe cabernet savignon from Turkey. What a great experience. Come here before the theatre or just wander up from the local hotels. Easy to find. And trust me you will be pleased you found Bar Saracen up a lane way from the corner of Exhitbition and Lomdsdale. Google maps will help you get here

Menu is very understated - no fancy adjectives. We loved every single dish - so much flavour and variety. Can recommend the prawn borek, eggplant and beef. The home made pitas are addictive be careful!

We had our New Years Eve meal here and it was absolutely phenomenal! The Egyptian seafood set menu was to die for and paired with the most incredible wine. Authentic, modern and inventive all in one. The staff were great! By the end I felt like an expert in the different wines and flavours that were Cleopatra inspired. I would highly recommend Bar Saracen to anyone looking for something a little different and exciting. Some of the best food I’ve eaten in a long time. Thank you for such a great night guys!