CURLI Q'S HIT BEIRUT

Following the award-winning success of Le Gray, Beirut, founder and chairman of Campbellgray Hotels, has announced a series of ambitious expansion plans set to propel his luxury hotel group further into the Middle East and Europe. After two years of thorough research, which included focus group testing, Curli Q's grand opening took place on October 1 at its shop in Beirut located on Sourati Street, Khawli building, in Hamra.

We catch up with founder Maya Bekhazi Noun, creator of success stories, most recently Spin The Hen and Shoots salad bar in Abu Dhabi, to tell us more about her 17th concept to date, Curli Q, specialty cake shop and café.

"Curli Q gets its name from its spiral offerings. The concept was inspired by my travels abroad, where cakes are baked on spits, pointed rotating bars on which multiple layers of dough are rolled over each other and baked evenly, one at a time," says Bekhazi.

"The advantage of spit baking is that it allows the dough to preserve its moisture as opposed to traditional cake baking that exposes exterior layers to more heat, drying out the dough from the outside, while only preserving the dough’s interior moisture."

Spit creations at Curli Q are available in many shapes and flavors. Some dough rolls are kept plain smooth, some given ruffled surfaces and others decorated. The diameter of the spit and the number of dough rolls determine the thickness of the dessert, where some range from chubby small bites to larger pieces and whole cakes.

To provide consistent fast service to it’s customers, Bekhazi shares that a special oven was created specially for Curli Q, where it can hold up to three spits at the same time, rotating in a synchronized manner.

"With spit cakes, dough freshness and flavor are preserved as each layer is evenly baked, a factor that is missing in traditional cake baking."