Meet the chef

Lebanese Chef Joe Barza travels the world sharing the food traditions of his country, and he was in Joburg recently for a collaboration of Lebanese culinary experiences with Chef David Higgs at Marble Restaurant in Rosebank. Hilary Biller discovered that

Ilived in SA from 1988 to the beginning of 1993,” says Chef Joe, recounting the tale of arriving in SA having escaped his life as a bodyguard in war-torn Lebanon. “It was a friend of mine who pulled me from my country to come and work in his pizza place in Hillbrow. I stayed there for six months,” he says, holding up his wrist to display the SA flag he has had tattooed on his wrist, such is his gratitude, he says, to the country which gave him the opportunity to become a chef.

“It was a big shift moving from Lebanon to get rid of all the shit that happened to me. If I had stayed in Lebanon and hadn’t come to SA I wouldn't be where I am now,” says the worldrenowned specialist in Lebanese cuisine.

From pizza to airline catering Joe Barza worked at Air Chefs in Jet Park at the then Jan Smuts airpo run by Chef Brian McCune.

“Brian was my mentor,” he says, referring to one of SA’s chef luminaries. “Brian said to me, I’m not going to teach you how to cook, I’m going to teach you how to cook and think, which he did. We were making 17,000 meals a day and I was like a sponge, thirsty to learn.”

I’m across the table from Chef Barza in

Marble restaurant when we meet and he’s wearing his signature stetson. It’s the morning after the night he and Chef David Higgs and his team served the first of four Lebanese dinners to over 700 people. “We are 4-million people in Lebanon yet 20-million Lebanese live around the world with over 8-million in Brazil. There’s a large Lebanese community in your country and more than 10 Lebanese restaurants in SA,” he says.

Apart from the obvious passion for his homeland, Chef Joe's drive is to elevate the status of Lebanese chefs - and the food — on the global arena.

He adds that 1994, when he returned to Beirut, was a time when local chefs were employed to make the mezze and were never offered the high-ranking positions in the kitchen — the preserve of expat chefs. “I wanted to change this,” he says.

He travels extensively, holding the Lebanese flag high, having established new restaurants and upgrading skills around the world.

“The food is gaining more and more in popularity, because it is so healthy. It’s a poor country so vegetables are a main feature and meat, chicken and fish are a luxury. It’s a simple food,” he says.

“The passion started to grow in me when I was involved in the war. I found I could not help my country. With food I can help my country because it unites people — it doesn't have religion or politics — it just brings people together,” he says.

I like him, the kind of man who doesn’t speak about the accolades, winning competitions, TV appearances. It’s about the cuisine of his homeland.

That meal. A mezze of epic proportions — red lentil tabbouleh, replacing the bulgur wheat with lentils, full of texture and flavour, A trio of hummus that makes one’s heart skip a beat, served with hot flakey laffah, a Lebanese flatbread. The hero is his famous tuna dish marinated with shwarma spices and an artichoke salad. An interesting combo that strikes a memorable flavour chord.

He calls for a mhalabieh, a common Lebanese dessert, he says, made with milk, not unlike a panna cotta. It comes with an apricot coulis and is topped with caramelised apple. Delicious, each mouthful so comforting, it’s simple and could be the best start and end to any day.

Using the ingredients from Lebanon that have been specially imported for the dinner he talks of freekeh, one of his favourite ingredients. It’s a nutty green wheat full of flavour and texture, unique to Lebanon. It’s served with a twice cooked leg of lamb — smoked, cooked over the flame and finished off in the oven, served with dried fruit, a combo he picked up in SA. It was a triumph.

I urge him to share five essential ingredients in Lebanese cuisine. Top of the list is olive oil, then bulgur (dried wheat), essential for tabbouleh salad, the aromatic spices sumac and zaatar and, most important in Lebanese cuisine, he says, allspice.