Book review: Imad’s Syrian Kitchen by Imad Alarnab

Imad Alarnab says his new life began while he was stranded for 64 days in Calais as a Syrian refugee in 2015.

After enduring a three-month journey to the UK, leaving his wife, three daughters and a restaurant in Damascus, he found cooking for 400 people provided a taste of home and a reminder of who he was.

“I forever want to hear people say that this is the best falafel they have ever eaten!” he writes in the opening pages of his first cookbook, where he shares his story and those of his fellow Syrians affected by the ruthless civil war, which took hold of the country over a decade ago.

For Alarnab, there was a happy ending. He received asylum seeker status and was reunited with his family, who joined him in the UK a year after he began his journey. 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.

In the book he shares traditional Syrian dishes that form the basis of his cooking at the restaurant. 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... it’s more like a seasoning for us”.

Highlights include a refreshing rocket salad called jirjir made from za’atar, sumac, halloumi and watermelon, or the kataf ghanam lamb shoulder marinaded in madras curry powder, smoked paprika, Baharat, fresh ginger, red pepper paste and lemon juice before slow cooking until the meat falls off the bone.

“Being a refugee is exhausting. It’s emotional. It’s depressing,” he writes. Alarnab’s story is heartbreaking and humbling, with pages of key Syrian ingredients sitting next to the story of his brutal beating by Syrian police. But that is his reality, the light and the dark sitting incredibly close, and one that thankfully most of us will never have to endure.

Imad’s Syrian Kitchen – A Love Letter From Damascus to London By Imad Alarnab (HarperCollins, £26)