Imad's Syrian Kitchen: A Love Letter from Damascus

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Supper clubs sold out within hours and hungry workers waited patiently in long queues for take-away lunches at pop-ups. The recipes, which have traditional roots but are adapted for the modern home kitchen, rely on building a solid pantry of ingredients and spices to deliver big flavors. Process to a thick soup in a blender, adding more water if needed, then add the remaining safflower.

I whipped up the recipe for laban bikhiar (yoghurt salad) – Greek yoghurt topped with grated cucumber, mint, garlic and lemon – which is served with the mujadara.Soon after that he was running a pop-up restaurant in east London that was so popular tickets sold out in 24 hours, which led to him opening the doors of his Carnaby Street restaurant in 2021. She focuses mainly on food and travel but with a lifelong love of the arts – especially visual arts, theatre and literature – she enjoys writing reviews for London Unattached. I went to eat at Imad’s Syrian Kitchen mostly because I wanted to support the restaurateur who moved to London but not out of the desire to travel the world.

Such an amazing and moving story, beautifully written with love and humility there were parts where I had goose bumps. I really recommend this book – both as a cookbook with very tasty recipes, and as the story of a man who risked everything to come to London. Imad Alarnab is a Syrian chef, entrepreneur, and refugee who ran three successful restaurants, several juice bars and cafes in Damascus.

Amidst the recipes are essays about his love of Damascus, his love for his wife and daughters, and a moving piece about his beloved mother who died shortly after he left Damascus. In early 2020, his friend, Asma Khan, chef and owner of Darjeeling Express – based again in Kingsley Court – informed him that a space had opened up. The first chapter features spice mixes, such as dukkah, Baharat and shish taouk, while the second focuses on the basics, including the plain bulgur needed in the recipes for tabbouleh and mujadara, or a perfect tahini sauce which Alarnab says he uses "for everything. What an inspiring and humbling tale, told by a man who loves his family, food, and the country he was forced to leave. With a lot of help from my husband, I have made fourteen of the recipes – and have plans to try more.

Anyone who wants to know what it means to be a refugee will be staggered by Alarnab's harrowing account. VERDICT Recipes that spotlight particular ingredients with vibrant tastes anchor this deeply personal refugee story and will remind readers of the power that food has to bring people together and help them heal. Imad now runs an acclaimed restaurant in London, which was named GQ’s “Best Breakthrough Restaurant 2022. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). This narrative is often raw and vivid and may seem out of place in a cookbook, but Alarnab's food carried him on his journey, created his new livelihood, and connected him to the love of his home, making his powerful story a natural pairing with his recipes.The second book in the Test Kitchen series Extra Good Things (Ebury) is the title of the second out of four in the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen series.

I never make moussaka the traditional way because I don’t often cook meat at home and the required béchamel sauce is a faff, but this was a Syrian moussaka which is much less work and I put it together with ease in my lunch hour. This book will weave Imad’s unique and compelling story with recipes that are inspired by his love of his two homes: Damascus and London.Damascene cuisine will seem familiar to anyone experienced in Middle Eastern cooking, but the particular flavors that infuse Alarnab's hummus, baba ganoush, fattoush salad, falafel, kuftah, tabbouleh, kibbeh, and much more reflect his own take on Syrian traditions . But the beating heart of this cookbook is the saga of Alarnab’s escape … Anyone who wants to know what it means to be a refugee will be staggered by Alarnab’s harrowing account.