Sydney’s inner west isn’t well known for authentic Iranian food or Ethiopian coffee culture, but that could be about to change.
, opening later this month in Summer Hill, is a cafe run by refugee women that will serve Ethiopian-inspired breakfasts, and an Iranian buffet for lunch and dinner.
The menu will change as a new group of refugees takes over the kitchen, preparing feasts from their cultural background.
For the first eight-week rotation, Zahra Armian will be cooking a spread of Iranian dishes. She will be joined by her husband Hassan, as well as her brother and his wife.
Zahra, 28 and Hassan, 31, worked together at a restaurant in Iran before fleeing the country six years ago – he grilled kebabs, she was on the salad station. They are eager to return to the kitchen.
“I’m so excited, I want to start as soon as possible,” says Zahra, who is known in the local Iranian community for her cakes. At the café she’ll bake , small tea cakes flavoured with rosewater and cardamom.
They will also be making family recipes like , an aromatic rice pilaf cooked with green beans, beef and tomato. Chicken drumsticks will be braised in saffron, vegetables and eggs cooked into fritters known as , and Zahra has Iranian salads mastered.
But Hassan likes her best. This comforting, slow-cooked lamb is rich with a medley of green herbs that, along with the addition of dried limes, give the dish its uniquely fragrant flavour. “All our food smells very beautiful,” says Zahra.
This Iranian lamb and herb stew gets its one-of-a-kind flavour profile from dried limes. Source: SBS Feast
Food will be served buffet style, $10 for a small plate, $13 for medium or $17 for large, leaving Zahra free to chat and make new friends.
It’s an initiative from , a non-profit organisation that empowers women to trade their way out of poverty.
The menu will change every eight weeks as a new group of refugees takes over the kitchen, preparing feasts from their cultural background.
“The idea for the cafe came out of seeing that people really want to support refugees, particular in the inner west, but there’s often not a lot of ways to tangibly do it,” says national manager Bindi Lea.
Fate intervened when the site of a former Italian restaurant became available across the road from the Trading Circle’s current shop.
The Trading Circle is affiliated with , an organisation founded by , leaving behind everything they knew. It’s these four women for whom the cafe is named, though the parallels are clear.
Zahra Armian and husband Hassan will be cooking at this new social enterprise. Source: Four Brave Women
And while The Trading Circle’s main objective is to promote women’s empowerment, the kitchen is not a female-only space. Husbands and brothers and sons and uncles will share the workload with the women they love.
Hassan says that although he and Zahra have prior restaurant experience in Iran, it would be more difficult for them to run a food business in Australia.
That’s where steps in, a chef (she's worked at several hatted restaurants across NSW, including Eschalot, The Rock, Pier, Flying Fish, Cafe Paci) and nutritionist who is mentoring the groups on how to successfully translate their home cooking into a restaurant kitchen.
Spina says often the hardest thing is learning to cook on a much larger scale. The secret to adapting these family dishes to a commercial kitchen, she says, is having a good written recipe. “You’re trying to keep the spirit of the grandma who adds a pinch of this or that, but [you need to] make recipes that work.”
Kuku (fritters) will be on the menu at Four Brave Women. (Leanne Kitchen) Source: Leanne Kitchen
The women order and buy all the ingredients themselves, pay $180 a week for electricity, and 20 per cent of the profits goes back to The Trading Circle to cover overheads and fund projects to support women in developing countries.
“The idea is that they hopefully come away with the skills that they need to make money when they have a restaurant of their own,” says Spina.
A restaurant of her own is a dream for Adiam (Adi) Tefera, a 33-year-old single mum.
Adiam (Adi) Tefera is using the opportunity to introduce Sydney to her recipes. Source: Four Brave Women
She will be running a permanent coffee cart at the cafe each morning, with takeaway breakfast foods influenced by her mixed Ethiopian and Eritrean background.
“I’ll be making kitcha firir, which is a common Ethiopian breakfast eaten with tea,” says Tefera. It’s made from shredded, stir-fried flatbread, coated with spiced clarified butter and , a spice blend. She will also use berbere to spice up Sydney’s favourite egg-and-avocado combo.
The idea is that they hopefully come away with the skills that they need to make money when they have a restaurant of their own.
Tea will be made in the form of garam chai, spiced with cinnamon and cardamom, the coffee is sustainably sourced from Ethiopia, and Tefera plans to run traditional coffee ceremonies once a week in the shop.
One day, she wants to open the first vegetarian Ethiopian restaurant in Sydney.
“I’m a single mum so it’s hard, but I’ve been given this opportunity and I’ve got to take it – for me, and for my son,” says Tefera, smiling widely.
Open for dinner only April 6-8, then full hours from Monday April 9, Mon-Fri 6.30-9.30am, Tue-Sun 11am-2pm; 5.30-8.30pm
26 Lackey Street, Summer Hill, NSW
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