AN INNOVATIVE EATING EXPERIENCE IN BEIRUT

NOT A RESTAURANT BUT A HUMAN EXPERIENCE THAT CONNECTS URBAN DWELLERS WITH VISITING RURAL COOKS, ON A DAILY BASIS.

No need to go to the country to experience homemade, homegrown recipes and dishes. In Beirut, an innovative food experience is getting noticed for its ambitious attempt at a social experiment that brings together passionate home-cooks from towns and villages across the country with time-crunched city folk, in an unlikely loft-style industrial setting.

Beirut is enjoying a revival of its reputation of splendour, as the "Cultural hub of the Middle East." A cosmopolitan capital with every kind of restaurant and cuisine, it is rediscovering it’s own roots through its rich cultural cuisine.  This movement has been driven by Kamal Mouzawak, one of Poetry of Food's esteemed writers and an acknowledged social innovator in the food world. Kamal is the brainchild behind Tawlet Souk El Tayeb. With an ambition to re-educate people about their heritage by rediscovering forgotten ingredients and recipes, he has based the idea of Tawlet on the hospitality style of a typical village home's table. 

Middle Eastern hospitality is well known and loved, not just by the locals but by visitors as well. On any given day, throughout Lebanon’s towns and villages, the people make delicious meals from locally grown vegetables and fruits, and their own cold-pressed olive oil; simple fare that’s hearty, healthy and delicious.  Whether family or friends, someone will typically drop in for lunch in a very simple and informal manner, with humility and graciousness. It is this experience that Kamal set out to create—but in the city.

Once in a while, we encounter new ideas in the restaurant world that are unique and completely new. The restaurant industry is continually inventing new types of cuisines, hybrids between likely and sometimes-unlikely cultures. This idea is a throwback to a simpler life and times, and is full of goodness  and love. This is not about the invention of new cuisines; it is about celebrating old traditions.

On the day I visited Tawlet, I was unsure of what to expect. The experience began with me finding my way in a part of the city I am unfamiliar with; an old industrial area of Beirut that is currently in transition. Leap five years ahead and it will be the “new part of town,” where art galleries and cool restaurants will be born.

Kamal and his staff welcome visitors as if they were guests arriving at their home. I was greeted with a genuine smile and the feeling that I was honouring them with my visit. This is of course the reverse in any restaurant in N.Y., London, Paris or the rest of Beirut, where you feel they are doing you a favour by honouring the reservation. 

The space is voluminous and loft-like, designed in a vernacular ad-hoc style. It's intended to look undesigned, as if the decor just happened to come together; a mixture of unexpected objects and furniture. The effect is refreshingly original and charming in an age of overindulgent interiors. The style is unassuming and very welcoming. Stripped of any formality, it makes you feel like you could lounge around for hours—which is exactly what I ended up doing.

I arrived at 11 a.m. and was there long enough to witness the transformation of the space and the menu. Tawlet has a full-time chef responsible for the overall presentation and serving style throughout the day, as well as the breakfast and end-of-day menu. The visiting cooks show up in small teams with their local dishes that they've prepared in advance, then finish and serve them on the premises. The food is served buffet style in the open kitchen, where the cooks can stand behind the bar and discuss the intricacies of the menu.

Lebanese cuisine is rich with choice. There is a vast array of meatless dishes that can truly satisfy a vegetarian, or someone who simply prefers lunch without meat. Equally, there are many meat-based dishes. The daily menu is divided, with half the selections being vegetarian. On the day of my visit, I was able to sample regional versions of the infamous hummos, baba ghanouj, kibbé naya (steak tartare with cracked wheat), garlic-sautéed dandelion greens, four other kinds of greens prepared differently with onions or garlic, a fatoush salad, and a leg of lamb with rice and pine nuts.

Tawlet makes you realize the importance of the holy trinity of the dining experience: the food, the ambiance and the people. Kamal Mouzawak’s Tawlet is a truly meaningful experience on many levels, and you leave feeling like you ate in the comfort and warmth of his own home on his own tawlé (table).