Kazba

Overview

When Za Za Ta launched back in 2019, it brought Middle Eastern-style dishes and drinks to Fortitude Valley's Emporium precinct. Then, in 2020, it kept the same culinary focus while switching to an entirely plant-based menu. Now, the team behind the Ann Street spot has branched out — launching Tel Aviv-inspired cocktail bar Kazba in the same part of town.

Kazba is serious about its boozy concoctions, with 27 different types leading a menu that also features a small range of wine and beer. With the watering hole forming part of Fortitude Valley's Ovolo hotel, as Za Za Ta does, the accomodation chain's Director of Food and Beverage Jared Thibault has overseen the lineup, which incorporates Middle Eastern-style cordials made in house from the region's produce, as well as creative garnish choices.

Standout sips include a Turkish coffee martini ($21), which features spiced rum, caramelised yoghurt and chocolate cardamom bitters among its ingredients; a fig rum old fashioned ($25), complete with almond bitters and dehydrated fig; and a Tel Aviv sazerac ($21) made with an applewood smoke blend of arrack musar, za'atar rye, peychaud bitters, demerara, lemon zest. The venue's version of the Israeli Gazoz, called the Fizzy Bubbly ($17), comes in five different types — and if you'd like to try The Sun Also Rises ($34), which adapts the Hemingway daiquiri and is named after one of the author's novels, your drink will be poured from a flask hidden in a novel.

To complement Kazba's cocktails, Executive Chef Roy Ner's street food-inspired vegetarian menu features fried sesame falafel with tahini and amba pickles ($14), hummus ($18), wood-fired flat bread ($6), and chilli haloumi savoury doughnuts ($16) paired with pomegranate and chilli jam. From 10pm, the late-night range also spans murtabak gozleme ($18), falafel wraps ($16), and arayes with kofta ($20).

While eating and drinking, patrons will hear tunes from the venue's vinyl collection, including Afrobeat, funk, soul, disco, and Mediterranean and Arabic music. And, decor-wise, interior designers Luchetti Krelle have taken cues from the Victorian era, 1940s cocktail joints and traditional Queenslander architecture.