Beirut foodie tour

Food politics run deeper in Lebanon, as we find out on a recent trip to sample the city's delights Discuss this article

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As a self-proclaimed foodie who hails from New York, I’m accustomed to heated debates about the politics of food. Sustainable fish, raw milk, locally grown produce; hormone-free meat: these are all topics that inspire spittle-laced discussions. Though these things matter, this passion usually comes from a place of comfort and safety, or so I assumed. I didn’t imagine that people in formerly war-torn countries would care if their food was organic or not. But I was wrong. Beirut’s slow food movement (translation: good, clean, organic, local fare – a term created to counter the concept of fast food) is strong, and was even, or especially, during the conflict in 2006. I wanted to see for myself what made the Lebanese so proud of their home-grown food that they’d be willing at times to risk their lives for it.

My first evening in town, I weave through the narrow and hilly streets of Gemayzeh, the trendy nabe boasting dozens of clubs and restaurants. I’m in search of Bread Republic, a Mediterranean-themed restaurant dedicated to using only organic and local fare. It is one of the city’s more popular haunts and is owned and operated by Walid Ataya, one of Beirut’s leading slow food advocates. Ataya opened his restaurant two months before former Prime Minister Rafik Kariri was killed in a bombing a few miles away. Many restaurants closed at the time; his didn’t. Even after bullets struck outdoor tables of Bread Republic in 2008, when Hezbollah gunmen overran the area, Ataya returned to business the following day. When I ask him why he never shut the restaurant down during that tumultuous period, he shrugs:

‘In the face of adversity, life continues,’ he says. ‘A person has to do what a person has to do, irrelevant of any action or karma happening around him.’ Ataya, whose food is miles away from the mezze one associates with Lebanese food, teaches me my first lesson about the identity of the local cuisine. His food ideal: well-presented, well made, and not over-complicated. Though he doesn’t define it as Lebanese food, in my mind, it is the cuisine’s future. Nothing is imported. Even the wines come from nearby Becca. ‘It’s very terroire,’ he says.

Ataya is very passionate about the slow food movement, but he is quietly so. He doesn’t shout, he simply states. ‘We had slow food before slow food even existed,’ he explains to me. ‘We have a rich cuisine over here, and we should continue to eat what we’ve been eating for centuries.’ In the West, the organic and slow food movements are somewhat self-contained. Sure, they have an environmental significance, but by and large, they are about food and only food. In Beirut, they’re about more than that. It is a set of principles different factions can agree on, and it is a means to celebrate the country – every nook of it – and ultimately, bring people together. Kamal Mouzawak, a food activist and co-founder of the Souk el Tayeb, Lebanon’s first farmer’s market, describes it as ‘food nationalism’. The Souk el Tayeb operates out of three locations, two in Beirut. At the market, farmers from every region and of varying religions and creeds come together to sell (and celebrate) regional food.

‘Primarily, it’s about supporting our land, our products and producers,’ he says, adding that the project has also been a unifier in a region with a recent history of conflict. Despite the diversity of the products on offer and the people who sell them, there is a common narrative of the folks hawking cheese and pomegranates, kibbeh and jams. Like Ataya, many have at some point felt the effect of the war. Ali Fahs, an amiable man from the south who sells pickles, recalls the difficulty of running his business while his village, Jebcheit, was bombed repeatedly. Bakers Nelly Chemali and Mouna el Dorr were forced out of their land in 2006, but today would rather focus on Lebanon’s revival. I admire the local commitment to Lebanese food, and as I walk around the souk, and later the streets of Beirut, sampling the local fare, I understand it. The land bears some wonderful fruits. Unlike in Dubai, where a lot of produce is imported, chefs here have a lot of home-grown ingredients to work with. John Rees, the New York-reared executive assistant manager at the InterContinental Phoenicia, says the food is one reason he chose to work in Beirut.

‘The indigenous produce here is fantastic. I was with my wife in Becca, and we saw all these people lining up to buy curd. And you know what? It was some of the best I’ve ever had,’ he told me. ‘People here are adamant about their creameries, and when you try the cheeses, it’s clear why.’ Initially, I was surprised by how measured the passion of the food community was, given how much more has been at stake for them. It was on my walk through downtown Beirut – a neighborhood that was turned to rubble during the war and has since been turned back into an impressive city centre – that I realised that Beirut has a bright future. The famous nightlife has returned to normal, tourism is back up and the city is rebuilding at a ferocious rate. It occurred to me that the reason there is such calm amid the people I’ve spoken to is because they’re not focused on what they’ve been through as much as where they’re going.