Imad’s Syrian Kitchen: The Sunday Times bestseller full of the delicious flavours of Syria, with authentic recipes and true stories of life as a refugee

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For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. There are a lot of very nice photographs of the completed recipes, and also some of the preparations and intermediary stages, where extra help might be needed. 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. But that is his reality, the light and the dark sitting incredibly close, and one that thankfully most of us will never have to endure. Imad will introduce us to the delicious flavours and techniques of the Syrian kitchen – showing you just how easy this wonderful cuisine can be.

I really recommend this book – both as a cookbook with very tasty recipes, and as the story of a man who risked everything to come to London. My favourite recipes were ‘Katif Ghanam’ (slow cooked marinated lamb shoulder baked in a parcel with herbs, carrots, potatoes and onion), ‘Mujadara’ (bulgar wheat and brown lentil salad) and ‘Muhammara’ (a red pepper and walnut chunky paste). He received asylum seeker status and was reunited with his family, who joined him in the UK a year after he began his journey. Alarnab's story is heartbreaking and humbling, with pages of key Syrian ingredients sitting next to the story of his brutal beating by Syrian police.Soon after that he was running a pop-up restaurant in east London that was so popular tickets sold out in 24 hours, which led to him opening the doors of his Carnaby Street restaurant in 2021. With a lot of help from my husband, I have made fourteen of the recipes – and have plans to try more. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). This is clearly a book that’s been designed to demonstrate how easy it is to recreate traditional Syrian dishes in a domestic kitchen. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose.

Imad’s Syrian Kitchen is a bustling, riotous tour through 90 traditional and adapted Syrian dishes that can be made in the comfort of your own home. Many of the dishes that have become signatures at Alarnab’s London restaurant feature, including the falafel, which are strikingly shaped with hole in the middle for a ‘crispier texture’.Alongside delicious recipes, Imad will share the unforgettable details of how he came to settle in London, as well as the story of his home country, Syria. Later on, he talks of the frustrations of Syrian refugees, who believe the plight of their countrymen have been forgotten by many in the West. Imad now runs an acclaimed restaurant in London, which was named GQ’s ‘Best Breakthrough Restaurant 2022’. There are six chapters to the book in total, covering spice mixes, recipe basics, starters, mains, desserts and drinks.

The copy of the book I have is subtitled “A Love Letter from Damascus to London”, and it is book showing the deep affection the author has for his homeland of Syria, and his gratitude to Britain for giving himself and his family asylum here. Syrian cuisine remains relatively unexplored in the UK, and Imad’s Syrian Kitchen ​offers a vibrant introduction to it. Imad Alarnab says his new life began while he was stranded for 64 days in Calais as a Syrian refugee in 2015. Imad now runs an acclaimed restaurant in London, which was named GQ ’s ‘Best Breakthrough Restaurant 2022’. The recipes were all easy to make, though some of the timings needed extending (possibly due to our oven’s idiosyncrasies).Throughout, the recipes are simple and straightforward, with almost all the ingredients obtainable in your local supermarket.

The first chapter features spice mixes, such as dukkah, Baharat and shish taouk, while the second focuses on the basics, including the plain bulgur needed in the recipes for tabbouleh and mujadara, or a perfect tahini sauce which Alarnab says he uses "for everything. Alarnab’s testimony is split into nine sections interspersed within the different recipe chapters of the book. An entry midway through sees him reflecting on his relationship with his mother, who died in Syria less than two months after he arrived in the UK. Only one recipe had an ingredient I was not able to get: sour cherry molasses for the ‘Saroja’ (fried baby aubergines with cheeses). Alarnab has told his story many times before​​ to journalists and on TV, but this is the first time he’s really been given the space to explain the whole saga: from his life as a restaurateur in Damascus to being forced to flee and journey through Europe to the UK; navigating the UK’s long and debilitating immigration process; his fight to bring his family to the UK from Syria; opening his first restaurant in London; and, finally, reflecting on what it means to be a refugee today’s world.After enduring a three-month journey to the UK, leaving his wife, three daughters and a restaurant in Damascus, he found cooking for 400 people provided a taste of home and a reminder of who he was. He was a very successful businessman and chef in Damascus, but his opposition to Assad meant that it was no longer safe for him nor his family for him to remain. Firstly, the exact dimensions of the pan are not given, and secondly, it makes it very difficult to halve the recipe, as you cannot calculate ratios. Imad’s response is that 1) he already spoke fluent English, and did not feel at his age he could learn a new language to the same proficiency required to integrate into the new country; 2) he already had family living in Northern England.