‘Avant-garde Bengali cuisine’ comes to Surry Hills as Potts Point fine-diner Metisse closes

Sydney restaurateur Opel Khan is in the midst of the most dramatic week of his career. Last Sunday, he closed the doors at his chef-hatted Potts Point French fine-diner Metisse. This week, he opened Khanaa, a high-wire Bangladeshi restaurant, in the original site of Billy Kwong on Crown Street, Surry Hills.

It isn’t the end for the four-year-old Metisse, however. Khan says it will reopen in early 2024 in Barangaroo, where he hopes to find a stronger lunchtime market for the restaurant. Metisse’s sprawling Roslyn Street digs won’t go unused, either. In October, he’ll relocate his artisan pasta venue Acqua E Farina there from Macleay Street. “We currently have to turn away hundreds of customers a week [due to its size],” Khan says.

But it’s the food of his youth in Dhaka that currently has the chef’s undivided attention. Bangladeshi cuisine was his first culinary love, before he immersed himself in European cuisine and technique. He also believes the food of his homeland is overdue for some recognition.

With 60 seats indoors and an additional 40 outside, Khanaa’s dining room – which Khan designed himself – is a clean mix of white walls, dark chairs and a wall sculpture made from hand-woven silk titled Mermaid.

Khan estimates there are 350-400 Indian restaurants and takeaway spots in Sydney, but less than 20 focused on the food of Bangladesh, despite a high proportion of local restaurateurs being from Bangladesh.

“The food in Bangladesh is similar to Indian, but uses more seafood and is lighter. It doesn’t use cream or cashews. People are playing it safe because Indian food is known globally,” he says.

Khan isn’t playing it safe at Khanaa, with a Bengali food push he labels avant-garde, lifting elements of original recipes and recreating them as 21st century restaurant dishes. A potato bhaji is served with goat’s curd and shiraz caviar, kaccha (raw) tuna with watermelon and a payesh (rice pudding) brulee with saffron ice-cream.

Khanaa’s head chef, Lucinda Khan, wants to bring some of theatre of her Australian upbringing interlaced with Bangladeshi heritage. “We’re serving goat biryani using a family recipe,” she says.

“I feel like in Australia people see curry and think Indian,” Lucinda Khan says. “But lots of countries have curries: Japan, Korea. We think it’s time people got to see Bengali food.”

Open for brunch (from 10am) and lunch Fri-Sun; dinner Tue-Sun

Shop 3/355 Crown Street, Surry Hills, khanaa.com.au

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