This restaurant has, sadly, closed.
From street food style to slow-cooked meats, there’s a range of dishes on offer at the new Middle-Eastern tapas restaurant, Ceru.
Located beneath the Coca-Cola sign on the border between Potts Point and Kings Cross, the restaurant features dishes from the Levant region with a mix of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavours of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Jordan and Israel.
Ceru has travelled all the way from London, with its new Sydney location the first venture out of the UK. Taking over the ground floor of the Larmont Hotel, the restaurant’s interior is simply laid out with plenty of larger tables for group dining.
British export and Head Chef Tom Kime (previously of Sydney’s Fish & Co.) has designed a menu oriented around sharing, with the typical array of Middle-Eastern fare including dips, salads and meats, all put together with a twist.
Their marinated and fried halloumi comes served with cherry tomatoes, olives and oregano, and their lamb meatballs are dressed with sweet and sour cherry/cranberry sauce with cucumber yoghurt. The seared albacore tuna also strays from standard Middle Eastern fare, served with chermoula, roasted red peppers and a fennel salad. On the seafood front, we were disappointed to hear that the spiced crispy fried squid had sold out. An excuse to come back again soon.
My guest and I were advised to order three dishes each. We enjoyed the trio of dips with traditional Lebanese bread and roasted aubergines with tomato, cumin and chilli relish and a yoghurt dressing. The lamb meatballs came out slightly too dry for our liking and the zucchini and feta fritters we ordered lacked the total ‘crunch’ factor.
To drink, there’s a great list of biodynamic wines, craft beers and exotic cocktails like the ginger margarita or a peach and sesame sour. Or for something a bit different, try their homemade lemonades, including one made with the unusual combination of basil and honey.
To round the evening off we enjoyed the ‘flavours of baklava’ ice cream served with a slab of honeycomb, roast nut brittle and burnt honey caramel. The flavours worked well with an accompanying rich chocolate pudding.
This light and airy restaurant is a welcome addition to a part of Sydney struggling with hospitality at the moment. It’s good to see new places opening and breathing life into this lock out zone.
Ceru
2/ 2-14 Kings Cross Road Potts Point
Mon: 7am to 11pm, Tues to Fri: 7am to midnight, Sat: 8am to midnight, Sun: 8am to 10pm