CELEBRITIES IN THE KITCHEN
A tribal affair: Rabih Kayrouz and Kamal Mouzawak at Beit Douma
Before Airbnb made it popular, the Lebanese guesthouse experience was common practice. Families all over the countryside would open their homes to passing visitors, followed by a traditional breakfast the next morning. It is this essence of Lebanese hospitality that Rabih and Kamal exude as we walk through the decorated corridors of their 19th-century hillside house. The building was in complete disrepair when they took it on as a new project. Now with its yellow and red painted shutters, vaulted wooden ceilings, soaring arched windows and curated antiques, it’s truly a home away from home, if your home was designed by a couturier and had a personal chef, serving you breakfast on the terrace.
Other than being the outstanding purveyor of a B&B, Rabih has been described as “an architect in a world of decorators.” Schooled at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne and trained in the ateliers of Chanel and Dior, he established his house of couture and readyto-wear collections, blurring the lines between the extraordinary and the everyday. "Usually, you differentiate between couture and ready-towear, but with me, I don’t make that distinction. They both need to evoke an emotion,” he said. And that’s exactly what he conceptualized in Douma – an everyday traditional stone home, turned into an unexpected designer retreat, with manicured gardens and a postcard view. As Rabih was arranging a bouquet of handcut flowers for our centerpiece, we began our cooking session with his partner Kamal. A star in his own right, this chef and food activist has single-handedly transformed Lebanon’s culinary culture and put it on the map, winning the prestigious Prince Claus Award in 2016, the Dutch prize recognizing exceptional achievements in the cultural sector. He was also invited to speak at the MAD symposium in Copenhagen, the food conference co-founded by Chef René Redzepi of Noma (voted top restaurant in the world four times), returning for a second time with a team of 20 Lebanese women to serve tabbouleh and samkeh harra, among other traditional dishes, to 600 distinguished chefs and foodies.
In his book ‘Lebanese Home Cooking’, Kamal affirms, “No one can teach cooking and no one can be taught to cook. You just cook! Like you you cook for so many reasons: because you need to feed yourself; because you need to feed your family; because you need to gather around what can be shared by a group, a tribe of family or friends; because you want to treat yourself and others; because you can communicate love and caring through a bite.”
In the spring of 2004 the first Garden Show & Spring Festival took place in Beirut’s Hippodrome and Kamal was in charge of the food section, gathering ten of the producers and farmers he knew for the five-day event. The success of this undertaking led him to the decision to create a weekly farmers’ market every Saturday morning in Downtown Beirut - Souk el Tayeb. Beyond the farmers’ market, he’s also opened four eco-restaurants (Tawlet) and three eco-hotels (Beit) throughout the country.
No one can teach cooking and no one can be taught to cook. You just cook
It’s a cuisine that takes time but this is how we work; it’s communal work
“Food should never be about who makes what best and faster. It is about telling a story, preserving a tradition, making new ones, and feeling with delicious bites and emotion, those we love.”
The story of the day was one of communal work and friendship. “Maacron is a typical dish from the Lebanese mountains,” Kamal said. “It’s usually a fried sweet, but in Mount Lebanon we eat a savory maacron, which is like the local gnocchi. In Douma they eat it with just garlic, olive oil and salt.” And so the production line began – Kamal kneaded and rolled, Rabih cut and slid across a cheese grater and Jammal (one of Tawlet’s superwomen from the village) fried or cooked. “It’s a cuisine that takes time but this is how we work; it’s communal work. Jammal would have her daughters or her neighbors come help her. When we are many doing it, it takes less time and it’s fun. We’re talking, we’re chatting together; it’s like a productive visit,” Kamal said. “You don’t do maamoul alone at home. Today we would go to Jammal’s home and do hers, tomorrow she would come to us,” Rabih said as he rolled the last piece of dough and washed up before lunch. Soon we were joined by a group of out of town visitors, among them the sister of London-based cookbook author, teacher and chef, Annisa Helou and a New Yorkan farmers’ market organizer – the tribe was complete. And as the food was passed around and the wine was poured, our evolved instinct would be to post the moment on Instagram, but somehow the serenity and communal spirit took over. We simply enjoyed the moment, inspired by the day’s events or it could have been Kamal’s affirmation, “No phones on the table - it ruins the food.”
Food should never be about who makes what best and faster. It is about telling a story