Tom Sarafian, one of the city’s best-loved and most exciting chefs, will finally open his restaurant Zareh in March next year. The chef, who worked with the late Greg Malouf at Momo and London’s Petersham Nurseries, and was head chef at Rumi and Bar Saracen, hasn’t helmed a restaurant since Bar Saracean closed in 2021 during the Covid pandemic.

His new restaurant Zareh, at 368 Smith Street, Collingwood, is expected to open in March next year. At the day-to-night spot, Sarafian will serve his signatures, including hummus topped with king prawn and spanner crab sauce, and other dishes drawing on his Egyptian and Armenian heritage.

“I’ve always dreamed of creating a place that feels like home and shares the generous and rich hospitality of the Middle East for everyone who walks through the door. Smith Street feels right,” Sarafian says.

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At open, the restaurant will serve breakfast and lunch, with dinner service to follow. There’ll also be a significant retail section stocking both Sarafian’s hummus, toum and harissa as well as a number of products including a range of teas, different za’atar blends, pomegranate molasses and pickled and fermented vegetables imported from Lebanon.

Zareh was first announced in April this year. At the time, it was expected to open as a collaboration between Sarafian and the Mulberry Group in the CBD, but the two parties have since parted and Sarafian is opening Zareh on his own.

“It’s been a journey, with a few ups and downs and I’ve learnt so much. This is finally my chance to create something that really reflects who I am, what I believe in, and the food I’m passionate about.”

Zareh is named for Sarafian’s paternal grandfather, an Armenian man who brought his family to Australia from Egypt in the 1960s and, as Sarafian wrote in an Instagram post in 2022, “hustled his way into Melbourne’s French restaurant scene” and instilled in his family a deep love of food.

Zareh is expected to open at 368 Smith Street, Collingwood in March 2025.