Iftar

Iftar takes its name from the meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan, a deliberate choice for a restaurant built around Middle Eastern breakfast and lunch dishes rather than the dinner-focused Lebanese restaurants that dominate much of Western Sydney's dining scene. Owner Jeremy Agha built the menu around recipes passed down from his mother, translating home cooking into a restaurant format without smoothing over its rougher, more specific edges.

Sojok sausage, a spiced Lebanese beef sausage, arrives with fried eggs in one of the restaurant's signature breakfast plates, while a selection the restaurant calls its village cheeses gets a finish of honey drizzled over the top, a pairing that leans into sweet and savoury contrast rather than keeping the two separate. Wagyu kofta dumplings represent a more contemporary turn on a traditional Lebanese meatball, pan-fried rather than grilled and built around a premium cut of beef not typically associated with kofta preparations. For larger groups, the kitchen puts together what it calls a feed me feast, a chef-selected spread designed for sharing rather than individual plates, in keeping with the communal eating style that defines much of Middle Eastern home cooking.

The restaurant sits on Main Lane in Merrylands, a suburb in Sydney's western suburbs with a longstanding Middle Eastern community, though Iftar's contemporary presentation and breakfast focus set it apart from the more traditional charcoal chicken shops and grill houses that make up much of the area's existing halal dining. The Sydney tourism board has featured the restaurant among its recommended dining spots in Sydney's west, citing its shareable format and family recipes as reasons for visitors to make the trip out from the city centre.

Merrylands and its surrounding suburbs have built a reputation as one of Sydney's more concentrated pockets of Middle Eastern cooking, and Iftar's breakfast and lunch focus fills a gap in a local dining scene otherwise weighted toward dinner service, giving the area a halal option for diners looking to eat earlier in the day.