Born out of a week-long culinary trip in 2019, MuMu is the latest addition to Merivale’s overwhelming culinary portfolio and the newest venue to join Justin Hemmes’ buzzing Ivy Precinct. It joins George Street venues like Bar Totti’s, Felix, Pool Club, and Uccello.
Over seven chaotic days of travel, Hemmes, MuMu executive chef Dan Hong, and MuMu head chef Oliver Hua ate their way across Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. “It was all about the people that we met along the way,” Hua tells us. “Just being able to roam the streets of these markets and enjoy what the locals eat and how they eat.”
The group even met up with acclaimed chef, restauranteur, and television host Luke Nguyen in Ho Chi Minh City, touring the city’s late-night markets and dining with Nguyen at his restaurant. That experience inspired MuMu, a casual Merivale eatery now serving up South East Asian street food that steers away from the tired Asian Fusion concept.
“We’re also just trying to draw from our personal experiences, how we used to eat at home and bring that sense of nostalgia,” explains the Vietnamese-Australian head chef.
Hua’s decade-long career with Merivale includes stints at Est. and Mr. Wong, before landing the head chef gig at Queen Chow at just 24 years old. Working alongside him to build the menu and oversee the venue is prolific Sydney chef Dan Hong, a key instrument in Merivale’s continued restaurant game success.
Hua speaks highly of Hong’s natural imagination. “How does someone come up with that?” asks Hua, referring to MuMu’s grilled Hawkesbury calamari dish, which Hong creatively pairs with a Lebanese toum garlic sauce and Asian sambal flavours.
At MuMu, Hua works from an open kitchen that offers front row seats to patrons sitting at the kitchen bar, soaking up the sights and sounds of flaming woks and even ordering directly from a chef.
Elsewhere throughout the venue is plenty of communal seating that matches the menu’s focus on shared plates. You can park up at booths, round tables equipped with Lazy Susans, or book out the private dining room—all awash with a bright orange hue emanating from the centrepiece neon sign that reads: “MuMu 4 u”.
For the menu at MuMu, Hua explains that Hemmes challenged his chefs to create out-of-the-ordinary dishes with stories behind them. One of the Merivale owner’s favourites fast became Hua’s “Prahok Ktis”. Inspired by the head chef’s Cambodian mother-in-law and showcasing a relatively unheralded cuisine in Australia, the small plate consists of spicy pork and fermented fish dip, pea eggplants, and seasonal crudites.
“All these aunties, grandmas, and mothers-in-law don’t really have recipes,” explains Hua. “There’s a sprinkle of this or a splash of that. So, I’m frantically trying to write down every single ingredient with no measurements.”
He also recommends a couple of must-dos for shared meals at MuMu. To start off, order up some sweet pork betel leaves, served with dried shrimp, macadamia, salted lime, finger lime, ginger, scud chilli, and lemongrass—a merry wedding of flavours and textures to kick off the dining experience.
And for something larger, try the signature grilled and glazed Angus short ribs, which are sous vide for 12 hours overnight before being chargrilled for plenty of smoky flavours. They come served with sambals, lettuce leaves, herbs, pickles and various sauces—go all in with your hands and DIY.
But precisely what flavour journey you want to embark on is up to you, with South East Asian influence throughout—from rock oysters served with ginger, scallion and Vietnamese mint vinaigrette to a Nasi Goreng made with spanner crab, cuttlefish, garlic crackers, and a classic fried egg.
The list of cocktails on offer is similarly based on Southeast Asian flavours, like the “Lost in Bangkok”, with gin, white rum, watermelon, and lychee. You’ll also recognise Ms. G’s “Yuzu Slushee”, a now famed frozen concoction of vodka, yuzu juice, and orange bitters.
Unlike the great depth of inspiration and thought put into the menu and its many unique dishes, don’t go looking for too much meaning from the restaurant’s snappy name. MuMu is fun and certainly memorable, just like the venue itself.
For more information about MuMu, including opening hours, head over here.
Now, check out our hitlist of the best restaurants in Sydney right now.
Image credit: Merivale