Aalia Wine Room Was Always the Plan. It Arrives in the CBD Very Soon

Ibby Moubadder has had his fair share of shawarma. But executive chef Paul Farag’s Murray cod shawarma – set to hit the Aalia Wine Room menu – is up there with the best he’s ever had. The new bar from Moubadder, co-founder of hospitality group ESCA (Nour, Joji, Henrietta, Ito), opens in Martin Place next week in the window-wrapped space just to the right of its namesake restaurant.

If you’re familiar with Aalia, the celebrated Middle Eastern dining room that opened in 2022, you’re in for the same approach with a different energy. “It feels like an extension of Aalia, with wine leading the experience,” Moubadder tells Broadsheet. “It’s intimate and approachable, a place you can drop in to for a spontaneous glass, or settle in for the evening. Personally, you’ll find me drinking the Ten Minutes by Tractor Trahere pinot noir.”

That Mornington Peninsula-made drop is just one of 235 on sommelier Sarah O’Dwyer’s wine list, which will have something for every drinker (and 31 by-the-glass pours). When curating the selection, she went for “balance, character and drinkability”, as opposed to traditional inclusions – and you’ll be sorted whether you’re after something easy-drinking or rare. 

As for the food, it sticks to Aalia’s opening intention of expanding our knowledge of Middle Eastern food. The name is Arabic for “highest point”, referencing exactly what Farag does: put on a show of technique, flavour and creativity from across the region, including Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey and the Emirates.

At the wine room, he uses Murray cod wing in the lunch menu shawarma, as well as in his version of kokotxas, or fish throats. “Paul sources them from the same Murray cod that features on Aalia’s menu,” Moubadder says. “The gentle pickling, paired with the subtle sweetness and acidity of tamarind, and the spice of Aleppo pepper creates something incredibly elegant, balanced and unique.”

The Middle Eastern influence will be seen across the lunch menu, which includes steak frites and cheeseburgers, and the cocktail list, too. And, bringing a cellar door to Martin Place, Aalia Wine Room will host somm-led tastings for the public and private events. It joins the same precinct as The Wine Bar at The International, so drinking in the shade of Harry Seidler’s modernist mushroom is only on the up. 

“From the very beginning, when we first signed the lease for Aalia, I remember looking at the space next door and saying to Jorge [Farah], my business partner, ‘This is where the wine bar should one day be’,” Moubadder says. It was already leased, but he expressed his interest. “Five years later I got the call, so in many ways this has been years in the making.” 

Aalia Wine Room will open at 25 Martin Place in the CBD, on Thursday January 22.

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