Beirut-raised restaurant owner Ibby Moubadder opened Newtown café Cuckoo Callay on a whim just over ten years ago. Now his fast-growing hospitality group operates several hat restaurants and a new rooftop bar.
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When Beirut-raised nurse Ibby Moubadder arrived in Australia in 2007, his plan was to become a doctor. This week, the now restaurateur and budding bar czar adds glamorous rooftop bar Joji to the fast-growing ESCA hospitality group.
“(Nursing and hospitality) are both about taking care of people,” he says of his career change. In 2013, on a whim and a prayer, he opened Newtown café Cuckoo Callay as a side project.
Restaurateur Ibby Moubadder says nursing and hospitality are “both about taking care of people.” Christopher Pearce
Today, ESCA’s seven locations include herded restaurants Aalia in Martin Place and Surry Hills’ Nour, as well as Ito, a Japanese restaurant with an Italian twist, which received a “wow worthy” 15/20 review in April.
If ESCA isn’t Sydney’s fastest-growing hospitality group, it’s certainly a contender, with Moubadder one of the city’s most ambitious restaurant operators. Over the next six months he will add Bondi and Parramatta branches of his chicken restaurant Henrietta, and a glitzy new restaurant and bar will appear at the Oxford & Foley development in Darlinghurst late next year.
If he’s a little late to the Sydney rooftop craze, it’s not for lack of trying. The deal with Joji (Japanese for George) has been in the works for three years, when plans were submitted to add coverage to the fifth-floor rooftop space, which is above the Cartier flagship store on George Street.
The Joji roof bar opens above Cartier’s flagship store on George Street.Jana Langhorst
“The first time I stepped in here I knew it had to be a bar: music, smoke from the robata grill… with the energy of Sydney,” he says.
Moubadder wants to add culinary skills to the standalone bar genre. “We are a food-led group. I believe if we do it right, Joji will be the best bar food in Sydney.”
Group chef Paul Farag has been working on lollipop-shaped skewers of Wagyu, while another is loaded with parson’s noses (the tail of a chicken). Customers can enjoy Joji’s Japanese curry bread or quail and pork belly tsukune.
Moubadder predicts Joji will serve “the best bar food in Sydney”.Jana Langhorst
Moubadder has tapped Kerry Burgess, the former managing director of award-winning London bar Happiness Forgets, to head up ESCA’s drinks programme. “There are a lot of technical details in the drinks,” Moubadder explains. Joji’s “bamboo cocktail” contains notes of tequila, tomato and apricot.
“We are excited to enter a new space and finally open our first bar,” says Moubadder. “We put our heart and soul into this venue, so I can’t wait for Sydney to experience what we’ve created.”
Open Wed-Fri 12 noon; Sat-Tue 4pm – 2am
Floor 5/388 George Street, Sydney, jojisydney.com
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