Where feast meets west
STREET FOOD SCOTLAND’S DAMASCENE CUISINE CONVERSION
WHEN Syrian Abdul Khalifa arrived in Glasgow, he had one euro in his pocket.
He left his homeland in 2013 after being forced to close his restaurant in Damascus as conflict tore the city apart.
Now he has a new city and a new restaurant.
With the opening of Lazord in Howard Street, Abdul is the newest member of a growing group of refugees bringing authentic Middle Eastern street food to Glasgow.
By summer 2016, Scotland had welcomed more Syrian refugees under the Government’s resettlement scheme than anywhere else in the UK, accepting more than 600 people.
Figures from the same time indicate there were around 3000 asylum seekers in total in Glasgow.
For displaced people, food is often a way to connect with both their home culture and their new one. It can build a bridge between the two, acting as comfort and connection.
As such, there are always stories
Refugees introduce Middle Eastern fare to country which offered them home Now, Glasgow is my home. Food is my way of saying thank you ABDUL KHALIFA
behind the people behind the counter. Abdul said: “My restaurant was very successful until the uprising started.
“Then the city became cut off, so ingredients were not available.
“At times, the electricity would be
cut off, so all the food in our fridges and freezers would have to be thrown out. We used gas cylinders and sometimes it was difficult to get hold of these, so we couldn’t cook.
“There were many areas in the city that were not safe after dark. People stopped coming.”
Abdul’s journey to the UK took five months, travelling through Turkey to Greece, walking through the night and hiding from the authorities during the day.
When he reached Calais, he paid an agent to get him on to a lorry going through the Eurotunnel. And when he arrived on an industrial estate near Dover, he asked a security guard to call the police so he could be taken to the station to claim asylum.
After three days in a camp, he was told he would be going to Glasgow.
He now works as an interpreter and translator, helping Arabic-speaking arrivals navigate their new home. He interprets for them through the asylum process, accompanies them to hospital appointments and enrols their children in school.
Abdul credits his language skills to being from a wealthy, educated family. His father was the local mayor, one brother was a doctor, one an engineer, one a pharmacist and one a teacher. Abdul has an MBA which he studied for partly in English.
Dishes on the menu at Lazord include Syria’s take on the Middle Eastern staple shawarma – spiced chicken or lamb served in flatbread with garlic yoghurt and chilli dressing.
They also offer mohammara, a flatbread with pomegranate molasses and manakeesh, a version with fennel and thyme.
Fresh bread is made every half hour and prices are kept low.
Abdul’s brother Alaa will be managing the restaurant. He was a carpentry teacher in Damascus but left in 2014 and arrived in Glasgow the following year. A year later, his wife Danah and sons Ahmed, five, and four-year-old Abdul joined him.
He said: “I lost seven years of my life in Syria when the fighting started. I had a long journey to get here. I went to Lebanon and then to Egypt, then across the sea to Italy, which took 10 days. There wasn’t a lot of water or food and there were 350 people on the boat – a lot of children.
“I’m looking forward to cooking Syrian food. Some of our food will be new for Scottish people but I think they will like it.”
Glaswegians Suhail, a business owner, and Fraz, a solicitor, are planning to be regulars.
Suhail said: “It’s a fantastic addition to Glasgow’s street food scene, something completely different.”
Fraz, who became friends with Abdul after working with him, added: “Abdul’s food is fantastic. He does so much for the community – he puts together food parcels for asylum seeker families and delivers them, he’ll answer the phone to people in the middle of the night.
“And now he’s opened a business and employing people.”
From the newest kid on the block to one of the first. Babylon, owned and run by Iraqi Kurd Assad Haddad, has sat across the river in Tradeston since 2011. Assad followed his family from Baghdad to Glasgow to claim asylum in 1999.
He said: “Two of my brothers came here in 1975, because they were opposed to Saddam Hussein and they were chased out. Because of that, I was in danger.”
A mixture of Middle Eastern cuisine is sold at Babylon.
Assad said: “The food is all very similar because people were displaced a lot in our region. And they took their food with them.”
The Middle Eastern street food eateries that have sprung up in Glasgow – including Shawarma King, Govanhill’s Kurdish Street Food, the Syrian and Lebanese restaurant Lotus and Cessnock’s Shawarma Grill – reflect this blending of culinary cultures.
For Abdul. though, it’s all about two places – Syria and Scotland.
He said: “Now, Glasgow is my home. I started my business to do something for the society here that has been so friendly to me. Food is my way of saying thank you.
“Opening my restaurant means that I’m starting a new life, it means I am standing on my own feet again.
“We can’t cry forever. We lost so much but we have to build something new.”