SBS Food talks to master of Middle Eastern cuisine, Greg Malouf, as part of a series of interviews with Australia's top chefs and cooks.

Click here for a selection of recipes from Saha and Turquoise

Greg Malouf has fond childhood memories of family gatherings in the crowded kitchen of his grandmother’s Melbourne home, where he would watch on curiously as the women expertly prepared aromatic traditional Arabic dishes from their homeland. It was his fascination with the culinary ceremony of these occasions, as much as his capacious appetite, that eventually led him into the kitchen professionally.

Greg’s career as a chef has taken him around the world several times over to the most exotic of locations, and earned him many industry awards along the way. His distinctive style of cooking – which borrows from his Lebanese heritage, his time spent training in Europe and his penchant for gastronomic expeditions overseas – has come to be recognised back home as ‘Modern Middle Eastern’.

Greg now works as the executive chef at MoMo restaurant in Melbourne (owned and managed by brothers Dean and Geremy Lucas), while also running his own business, Malouf’s Mezza, which involves guest chef work, restaurant, menu and kitchen design and consultancy jobs, and a Middle Eastern spice range. Together with his friend and former wife, Lucy Malouf, he has also co-authored four award-winning food books: Arabesque (1999); Moorish (2001); Saha (2005) and Turquoise (2007) published by Hardie Grant Books.

Saha (meaning ‘a blessing or toast to good health’) is a culinary travelogue of the pair’s journey through Lebannon and Syria, featuring stunning and extensive photography of the region and its cuisine, while Turquoise documents another food-focused travel adventure they undertook to Turkey through engaging stories, heavenly recipes and breathtaking images of Turkish culture and landscapes.

As if this weren’t enough, Greg has restaurant projects on the boil in Western Australia’s Broome and overseas in Jordan, is busy with ideas and itineraries for further travel cook books, and will be on deck for the reopening of MoMo at its new Collins Street premises the end of the month. But if he knew his mum was making vine leaves or kibbeh, he’d drop everything and be there in an instant, happy to take a back seat and leave the chef duties to the real expert.