themiddleeats
A SERIES

Arab Food Heritage

Ten countries, ten culinary traditions: the restaurants keeping the region’s home cooking alive, one table at a time.

10 stories
  1. 01A clay pot of baked rice pudding with a deeply browned crust and a ribbon of cream on top, standing on a plate with a triangle-pattern rimEGYPTHagouga, Heliopolis: Egypt’s Countryside Cooking, Kept Alive in CairoIn a white-domed restaurant off Cairo’s Suez Road, the menu follows the clay pot, the village oven and clarified butter: slow dishes from the Egyptian countryside, served in the capital.
  2. 02Sand-coloured mud-brick walls with rounded parapets and buttresses under a clear blue skySAUDI ARABIANajd Village, Riyadh: The Generous Table of Central ArabiaIn floor-seated majlis rooms built to evoke a village, rice, meat, wheat and bread arrive on shared platters: jareesh, matazeez and kabsa among them.
  3. 03A wind tower and traditional sand-coloured houses in Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood, Dubai, lit in yellow against a dark night skyUAEAl Khayma, Al Fahidi: Where Desert Meets Coast in Old DubaiA restored house, a courtyard around a tree and a Bib Gourmand: Emirati cooking at the heart of Dubai’s oldest surviving neighbourhood.
  4. 04The entrance of Abu Shukri Restaurant: a black sign with the name in Arabic and English, a red fez above the first word, and a stone arch with an iron fan grille over the doorPALESTINEAbu Shukri, Jerusalem: The Craft of Doing a Few Things WellOn Al-Wad Street in the Old City of Jerusalem, a vaulted stone room has built its reputation on warm hummus, fava beans and falafel.
  5. 05The green Hashem Restaurant sign in English and Arabic above a corner shopfront on a downtown Amman street, with pedestrians and strings of Jordanian flagsJORDANHashem, Amman: Downtown’s Table for Seven DecadesThere is no printed menu at Hashem, only a short, fixed list of chickpea and bean dishes, in the middle of downtown Amman at a restaurant guides describe as open around the clock.
  6. 06Rooftops and tall decorated brick tower houses in the Old City of Sana’a, with a minaret and mountains in the distanceYEMENSana’a’s Table: Zurbian, Mulawah and the Bubbling Pot of SaltahYemen’s national dish arrives in a stone pot, still boiling and capped with a froth of fenugreek. Around it sit layered bread, a southern rice dish and a lunch that is the main event of the day.
  7. 07Bunches of leafy greens, chard and pink radishes laid out in crates at a market stall in BeirutLEBANONTawlet, Beirut: Lebanon’s Village Kitchens at One TableSince 2009, cooks from villages across Lebanon have taken turns in a Mar Mikhael kitchen, bringing the dishes of their own households to one shared table.
  8. 08A long façade banded in black and white stone, with arched windows, small trees standing between the arches, parked cars and a policeman beside a motorcycle in frontSYRIANaranj, Damascus: A Table Named for the Bitter OrangeA restaurant in the Old City’s Al-Qaymariya quarter took the Arabic word for the bitter orange as its name, and became a familiar address for Syrian classics served on large platters.
  9. 09A round table with a white cloth, a candle lantern and nine small plates of Moroccan salads, olives and fried pastry rolls, on patterned porcelainMOROCCODar Yacout, Marrakech: The Diffa, Course by CourseBehind an unmarked door in the medina, a fixed-menu dinner moves from rooftop aperitif to salads, pastilla, tagine and couscous in the order of a traditional Moroccan diffa.
  10. 10Several whole carp stood upright on wooden stakes in the sand beside a wood fire, with flames and charred logs behind themIRAQBaghdad’s Masgouf: Smoke, River Air and Patience on Abu Nuwas StreetIraq’s best-known dish is a carp opened flat, stood upright beside a wood fire and left to roast for the better part of an hour or more, in the riverside restaurants of the Tigris.

The Middle Eats Weekly

A weekly briefing for the region’s food industry: openings, awards, deals and the dishes everyone is talking about.