How the humble Shawarma is helping rebuild lives in Brazil
Syrian refugees are capitalising on São Paulo’s appetite for their native cuisine and introducing more unfamiliar dishes
On a Thursday morning in São Paulo, Ghazal Baranbo prepares for the lunch rush at her family’s restaurant. She carries out neatly organised trays of hummus, tabbouleh, falafel, and hindi kabab and arranges them in a buffet-style line. Her husband, Talal Altinawi, is speaking with their lawyer about the business.
At noon sharp, they’re slammed. The couple frenetically rearranges the dining room to accommodate the quick turnaround of lunch-break patrons while they take turns passing their two-year-old daughter back and forth. They switch between using Arabic with each other and Portuguese with the costumers.
It looks like a well-choreographed dance, but four years ago Baranbo and Altinawi, refugees from Syria, could have never imagined they would own a successful Syrian restaurant in São Paulo, South America’s largest city. They used to live comfortably in a suburb of Damascus, where Altinawi was a mechanical engineer and Baranbo stayed at home with their two children. But as the civil war in Syria progressed and the Assad regime cracked down on civilians, it became too dangerous to stay.
Today, the couple is playing a part in the growing landscape of Syrian refugee-run restaurants popping up across São Paulo. Newly arriving immigrants, who rarely have experience working in the restaurant industry, are turning to home-cooked Syrian food to make a living.
It’s a phenomenon seen in this city for decades, with other waves of immigrants like Japanese, Lebanese, Cameroonians, and Armenians making a culinary foothold before them. The country’s open-door policy for refugees plays a big role in making this possible. And for Altinawi and Baranbo, it’s laid the groundwork for a city that’s already familiar with Middle Eastern food.
A wave of Middle Eastern immigrants in the 19th century helped make Syrian delicacies like esfiha (savory pastries) and quibe (spiced bulgur-wheat meatballs) staples in Brazil, and it’s estimated that 7 to 10 million Brazilians have Lebanese ancestry, or almost five per cent of the population. Newly arrived Syrian refugees are capitalising on Brazil’s appetite for their native cuisine, bringing back authenticity and flavour and introducing more unfamiliar dishes, ranging from shawarma to baklava.
Most refugees or immigrants here never planned to open a restaurant.
Dr Saeed Mourad, an orthopaedic surgeon from Damascus, came to Brazil two years ago. Converting his degrees and qualifications to practice medicine in Brazil was nearly impossible, so his family turned to the food industry. At their restaurant, they sell baklava, kanafeh pasteries, and sesamecovered barazek cookies, alongside Syrian-style coffee with cardamom. “I decided opening a Syrian restaurant would be a good idea because it’s a quick way to get income. And Brazilian people really like Middle Eastern food,” Dr Mourad says.
Many other recently arrived Syrians have followed suit. There’s Muna Sabores e Memórias Arabes, opened by a Syrian woman who sells sweets and other traditional foods that she makes in her home, and Eyad Abuharb, who’s had great success selling fast food-style shawarma sandwiches at his restaurant, New Shawarma, near São Paulo’s downtown. Adam Hamwia, who opened Adoomy in the city’s trendy Vila Madalena neighbourhood, specialises in fried chicken and gyro-style wraps.
Middle Eastern food is so ubiquitous here that there’s even a fast-food restaurant called “Habib’s,” which sells esfihas, BBQ kaftas, and baba ghanoush, alongside cheeseburgers and pizza. Its logo is a winking man with a big grin wearing a fez.
“In other parts of Brazil you can’t find such diversity, and the people aren’t used to ‘exotic foods’ because they don’t have the same history as São Paulo, which has always received so many immigrants,” says Roxo, the food blogger.
“São Paulo’s food scene has transformed over the years, and now it’s totally eclectic. I think that in a few years we’ll be like New York City, full of influences from all over the world.”
— The Christian Science Monitor
Middle Eastern food is so ubiquitous here that there’s even a fast-food restaurant called Habib’s, which sells esfihas, BBQ kaftas, and baba ghanoush, alongside cheeseburgers and pizza.