It’s one of Sydney’s most exceptional desserts, and it’s in Punchbowl

We’re in Punchbowl after dark, on a quiet suburban street overlooking the T3 railway line. There are a few empty shopfronts, a funeral home, and a small cafe where the lights will stay on and the coffee will keep pouring until well after midnight. This is Afandi Cafe, and it’s said to serve the best knafeh in Sydney.

You might know knafeh from the annual Lakemba Night Markets, which concluded this week. The Middle Eastern dish is a highlight each year − a visual spectacle of gold spun pastry, sliced and pulled from warm pans to reveal a layer of molten cheese, stretching as high as the vendor’s arm allows. Lots of yelling, lots of fun, lots of people filming for social media.

But its popularity as a dessert (and originally, a predawn breakfast) extends far beyond the advent of TikTok. Yes, knafeh might have been the precursor to 2025 confectionery craze Dubai chocolate, but it was also a sought-after dish among the political and religious elites of medieval Arabia.

One bite, and you’ll get it. There’s something in the textural interplay of soft, elastic cheese and the crunch of shredded, burnished pastry; something instinctively satisfying when the sweetness of sugar syrup mingles with the gentle salt, lingering in the washed cheese.

Afandi Cafe owner Mohammad Ismail never planned to make knafeh for a living, but he serves it year-round. He was born in Palestine, studied to become a pharmacist in Jordan and migrated to Australia in search of opportunity. But his qualifications weren’t recognised here, and like so many migrants before him, he turned to hospitality.

“I always liked street food more than fine dining, so I started a street cart in Lakemba,” Ismail says. For two years, he worked to perfect his uncle’s recipe for knafeh Nabulsiyeh, handing out free samples to customers, listening to their feedback, and making the necessary tweaks.

“I tried to get it as close to the authentic knafeh as I can, but it’s not quite there,” he says. “It’s maybe 85 per cent.”

That’s because of the cheese. Knafeh Nabulsiyeh originates from Nablus, a Palestinian city on the West Bank of the Jordan, where it’s made using local cheese: a firm white sheep’s milk cheese flavoured with mahleb, brined with added mastic (the same ingredient that gives Turkish ice-cream that chew and stretch), and soaked in water to reduce its salt content. Ismail said it proved too difficult, and expensive, to source in Australia.

Instead, he makes it from scratch, using cow’s milk. It takes three days each week, and the final product is creamy, mild and has an incredible stretch. Ismail also makes his own ghee (clarified butter). It’s used to carefully coat each strand of shredded kataifi pastry before the knafeh hits the pan, creating that light, golden crunch.

There’s something in the textural interplay of soft, elastic cheese and the crunch of shredded, burnished pastry.

The final dish, made to order, is Ismail’s own: delicate and delicious, garnished with chopped green pistachios and served with a small glass jug of unflavoured qatir (sugar syrup) to pour over the top. The single size is generous, but you can order them as large as a market paella pan.

We dig into it with spoons and the cheese keeps stretching, and stretching, far beyond what we expected. It’s a fun dish to eat, and the signature Afandi black spiced tea has just enough tannin to cut through.

Ismail also serves atayef (also pronounced qatayef). They’re plump, golden dumplings with a pancake shell filled with your choice of cheese, ashta (clotted cream) or mixed nuts. Allow a bit of time for them to be shaped and fried to order. The sticky savoury chew of the mixed nuts made it an easy favourite.

Ismail said he’s come a long way since the street cart. There are plans to open a backyard courtyard, and expand the menu to include a few savoury options.

“I started with nothing,” he said. “I heard Australia was a nice place where you can make your dreams come true. And now, I’m married, I have three children, and have been in this business for [almost 10] years.”

At 9pm on a weeknight, Afandi Cafe is a date spot, and all four indoor tables are taken. The couples talk quietly, drinking Turkish coffee and occasionally glancing up at the TV on the wall. A variety show is playing in Arabic, and you can smell the fresh cinnamon as it’s grated to make sahlab – a thick, creamy milk pudding topped with crushed walnuts and raisins.

The interior is simple – red-cushioned bench seating, glass-topped bistro tables, and two plastic olive trees. But there are also little details that feel a bit special, like the miniature doll-house furniture with prayer book and shisha, the tapestries on the wall, and the painted scenes of Palestine.

“It’s important to me to speak up as a Palestinian, to say we are not only people in conflict,” he says. “We have brains, and passion, and feeling.” And great food.

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