DINE OUT IMAD’S SYRIAN KITCHEN LONDON • IMADSSYRIANKITCHEN.CO.UK


HAVING LOST HIS RESTAURANT EMPIRE TO THE WAR IN SYRIA, IMAD ALARNAB HAS BEGUN REBUILDING IT IN THE UK, WITH PLENTY OF FLAIR AND FLAVOUR


The story of Imad’s Syrian Kitchen, which opened in London’s Soho in May, fi rst begins six years and 2,000 miles away. Imad Alarnab was a successful chef in Damascus, with three restaurants and several cafes to his name. Then the war came — and in six short days, each one was destroyed. So it was that Alarnab found himself making the perilous passage across Europe before being granted asylum in the UK. He arrived with £12 — just enough for the bus fare to Doncaster, where his sister lived. After a stint working as a car salesman, he returned to his fi rst love: cooking. He started supper clubs, falafel bars and pop-up restaurants until the time came that he was able to crowdfund £50,000 to open his own place. When I visit, Alarnab glides from table


to table in the white-walled dining room, dispensing smiles, enquiring as to whether his guests enjoyed this dish or that and extolling the virtues of an aubergine here, a baklava there. His avuncular jolliness, combined


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with sure knowledge and passion for the food he cooks, is infectious. The waiting staff are superb; they have a fi ne teacher in Alarnab. The menu is divided between eight


vegetarian dishes and fi ve more substantial lamb and chicken dishes. We order most of them; there are several standouts and not one bum note. The hummus is rich, deep and garlicky, with a crown of whole chickpeas. We make short work of it with the airy fl atbreads, which emit puff s of hot steam as we tear into them. A halloumi noodle salad comes next.


The thin, slightly salty strands of halloumi fi nd the perfect foil in the cool watermelon accompanying them it; we greedily order another portion. By now, Friday lunchtime service is in full swing. The bare wood fl oor and stripped back tables reverberate with the lively conversation of offi ce workers and shoppers from nearby Carnaby Street. It’s a wonder that the kitchen, half visible in the


NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/FOOD-TRAVEL


corner of the room, can cope, so small is it. But plates shoot out like an express train. A dish of yielding pink lamb fi llet, sliced and


accompanied by hummus and pomegranate, wins full marks from my companion. It is, he says, the best lamb he’s had in years. To round things off , we order a glass of muscadet, from a diverse one-page wine list, and a slice of Syrian ice cream. A speciality of Damascus, it’s dense and almost savoury in fl avour, served with a pillow of candy fl oss and with a little crunch of pistachio threaded through it. It’s a lunch to remember, each dish a


wonderfully executed hymn to the city Alarnab left six years ago. It’s an education in the food of Syria, too — one delivered with a friendly smile in the most relaxed of settings. London is lucky to have Imad Alarnab, with his fortitude, perseverance and extraordinary skill in the kitchen. Selection of dishes for two around £60; wine from £26 a bottle. The writer visited in June 2021. Samuel Muston


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