The western flank of Darling Street has a cafe and food store, a funky vintage clothing shop, a French bakery, the Salvos Store and the newest entrant, just five months old, Tagine.

The restaurant is glass-fronted with mud-brown walls and a water feature that looks like a DIY job. So does the shiny, corrugated, metal-and-glass topped counter. Red glass candle holders flicker on one wall; the other has an energetic painting with tone-on-tone, mud-coloured brush strokes.

This is a restaurant in its naive phase, at the beginning. The passion and energy are high, friends and relatives are helping out, and all that matters is getting the food out and the folks fed. As time passes, nuances and subtleties are acquired. The restaurant goes through a metamorphosis, emerging mature as a butterfly. Well, at least that's the theory.

At Tagine, you can see this theory unfolding. Young women greet you warmly and seat you kindly, but don't offer you a drink. Yet they are only too happy to get one for you when you ask.

The welcome comes with a white platter of Egyptian bread, olive oil and dukkah, a spice and seed mix. The bread smells yeasty, the oil is fruity and the dukkah is lemony. The three work beautifully together. So far, so good.

We have a good time reading the menu because the chef explains his food charmingly in an effort to overcome any prejudices his diners might have about Egyptian and Maghrebi food.

Vermicelli soup has "fresh herbs" and "lean meat", rice is aromatic, vegetables are seasonal, harrissa is "mild" (is anyone in Sydney chilli-shy?) and dessert is a "delicacy".

Of course tagines feature (beef, lamb, seafood, meatballs, vegetables and chicken) and there are chargrilled steak and spatchcock, and interesting side salads.

We start with the soup and mahshy, "a selection of seasonal vegetables stuffed with a mix of meat, aromatic rice and fresh herbs". The soup is a knockout. A sturdy, clean broth full of morsels of tender lamb, fresh parsley leaves and risoni (instead of vermicelli) is confidently seasoned and springs into the mouth with a wonderful play of textures.

The mahshy is modern in presentation but home-spun in flavour. Two green-grey Lebanese zucchini are crossed over half a red capsicum. Both are filled with nutty soft rice laced with pale, gently cooked beef and spicing so subtle it's hard to discern what they are but we're pretty sure about cinnamon.

Next, lamb shoulder and seafood tagines. We're offered couscous with raisins or rice with pine-nuts so we take one of each. The tagines are a complete contrast. The lamb is stewed into a sticky mess of crumbling meat and bones, like a slow-cooked Sunday roast by Margaret Fulton. Buttery, fluffy couscous soaks up the juices.

The seafood is a delicate braise of prawns, calamari and fish in a tomato-capsicum sauce with good spicing. The rice is fragrant and nutty and, like the couscous, understated, so that it doesn't overpower its big brother. If we have any quibble, it's that the tables are too small to hold comfortably the tagine dishes and the platters and the side dishes - potatoes and chargrilled vegetables, which are terrific.

There is so much heart and honesty in this cooking that as we wait for desserts we have to find out more from our waitress. She is related to the chef, Ramy Megalaa, who was born in Cairo and has worked in restaurant kitchens around Sydney.

He cooks food he remembers from home, some traditional, some from his family repertoire.

You can go the traditional or a more contemporary route with your dessert. Sticky date pudding and Tia Maria chocolate cake are not as interesting as basbousa, a semolina slice, and feteer meshaltet. This is a traditional Egyptian pastry that Megalaa has baked with butter, molasses and cream. It's like a bread-and-butter pudding without the sweet custard. The same sparseness characterises the basbousa, which needs more of its two main wicked constituents, butter and sugar.

If he is trying to disarm people's prejudice that Middle Eastern sweets are syrupy and calorific, I say, hang the diet and go with the true spirit of the cuisine. This food has a sense of provenance that other chefs take years to acquire. Megalaa just needs to keep his heart in the right place and his cooking skills on the right track.

DIGEST
Food A talented cook rekindles memories of his Egyptian home, stirring up exotic dishes with warmth and a modern approach.
Service Sweet and hospitable, there is a desire to succeed behind the earnest performances.
Atmosphere A night along the banks of the Nile is distilled into the earth tones, a water feature and touches of royal red.
Value A great deal if you like heartfelt, well-cooked food at about $47 for three courses, without sides and salads.