Cedars Restaurant
Milton
Cedars Restaurant brings an authentic and delectable taste of the Middle East to Milton's Park Road dining precinct.
With a focus on classic Lebanese cuisine, all dishes are prepared from scratch with fresh quality ingredients and are amongst the best you'll find anywhere in Brisbane.
Diners can take a seat in one of the many indoor dining nooks or on the outdoor undercover terrace, where you can feast like royalty while watching the world go by.
The substantial mezze menu is bursting with fresh traditional flavours, and everything comes highly recommended. Choose from hommos, plain or topped with sauteed mince with meat and ghee-fried pine nuts and almonds; mouttable eggplant (chargrilled, mashed with tahini and drizzled with lemon and virgin olive oil); hand-rolled stiffed grape leaves with pomegranate syrup; or batata with kezbara (fried potato cubes with coriander, garlic, spices, virgin olive oil and lemon).
Other must-tries include rkakat cheese (cheese, herbs & spices rolled in dough), fried stuffed kebbeh, sambusek (house-made dough pocket stuffed with seasoned meat, pomegranate syrup & house-blended spices) or shanklesh (aged dried yoghurt cheese with herbs & chilli, topped with veges and olive oil).
Other mouth-watering choices include spinach fatayer (house made dough pocket stuffed with spinach, diced onion & spices); grilled chicken wings marinated with house blend herbs & spices, with garlic lemon dip; green beans mousaka (green beans cooked with assorted veges); kafta balls (ground meat with parsley, onion and spices, topped with pomegranate sauce) or makanek (meat, spice and pine nut sausages with pomegranate sauce).
All bread at Cedars is house-made, baked fresh and served hot out of the oven, and can be enjoyed plain as an accompaniment to the mezze, or as a dish in its own right, stuffed with traditional flavours, such as cheese and herbs or ground meat, herbs, tomato, hot pepper paste, herbs and house-blend dressing.
Whilst it would be easy to feast on the huge variety of mezze alone, the house speciality is the char-grilled kebab mains, including signature dish Cedars Shawarma Platter - a mixed wrap platter of lamb and chicken kebabs in Arabic bread, served with veggies, pickles, tahini sauce and chips.
Also highly recommended is the chef's special, Chicken Moussahan: markok bread filled with grilled chicken, sumac, onions, almonds & extra virgin olive oil. And for groups of four, worth ordering is the Cedar Chargrilled Mixed (4 skewers each of lamb fillet, shish tawouk and kafta and 4 lamb cutlets, wrapped in oven-baked dough and spicy hot bread, served with chips and vegies).
Drinks-wise, Cedars offers a range of classic and Middle Eastern flavoured cocktails and mocktails; Lebanese, Mexican and local craft beers, an extensive selection of spirits and liqueurs, a concise menu of boutique wines.
And, for those who wish to try the full traditional dining experience, there's a hookah hut on the terrace so diners can indulge in a hookah pipe after dinner as is the custom in the Middle East.
