From blooming marigolds to slow-cooked mloukhieh, everything you see – and eat – at Salwa’s Garden is a labour of love by the pair behind legendary Almustafa in Sydney’s Little Lebanon.

Cheyenne Bardos

October 25, 2026

This is no ordinary dining room. At Salwa’s Garden, the best seats in the house are under a sprawling lemon tree, heavy with fruit, soon to be squeezed into lemonade and garnished with mint, picked a few metres from your table. If that spot is taken, slip into a shaded nook with cushioned timber seating, framed by sheer drapes and lush ferns, with a stained glass lantern that glints in the sun – the perfect spot for a long mezze lunch.

When chef-owner Salwa Loghmji and her husband and business partner, Ian Ballingall, took over this 110-year-old Oatley cottage in 2020, the backyard was shabby and overgrown. Salwa’s green thumb transformed it into a garden restaurant, in full bloom with customers on weekends (book ahead).

Kibbeh nayyeh. Wolter Peeters

Her cooking needed no such makeover.…