Imad's Syrian Kitchen: A Love Letter from Damascus

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This narrative is often raw and vivid and may seem out of place in a cookbook, but Alarnab’s food carried him on his journey, created his new livelihood, and connected him to the love of his home, making his powerful story a natural pairing with his recipes. Here, Imad will introduce us to memorable flavours and teach us how to cook Syrian food at home, simply.

This narrative is often raw and vivid and may seem out of place in a cookbook, but Alarnab's food carried him on his journey, created his new livelihood, and connected him to the love of his home, making his powerful story a natural pairing with his recipes. Instructions are clear and thoughtful throughout, but it’s the author’s personal experiences that make this heartfelt cookbook shine. It involves so much waiting, unable to do anything, completely at the mercy of a constantly changing series of people who mostly don’t seem to care.

Alarnab would go on to open the London restaurant that gives the book its name in 2021, but upon arriving in the city as an undocumented migrant in 2015, he found work in a car wash, where he also slept at night. It is hard to imagine that had he arrived nowadays in the UK, Imad might have found himself on a barge in a port of Devon.

Spread the cheer with a perfect gift for foodie friends Cookbooks are the perfect gift for Christmas – they not only provide easy reading by the fireside during the festive season but are the sort of present that can be used all year ahead.Imad’s Syrian Kitchen is part recipe book, part human story about how a successful businessman found himself fleeing for his life, crossing 10 countries, and turned by necessity into an illegal immigrant in the UK.