From the ancient alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City to kitchens around the world, Palestinians are stirring new trends in cooking while sticking to traditions.
The trend has whipped up a growing appetite for specialist books and food tours.
“It’s changing for the better, I think. Many Palestinians are keen to market their food,” said Nassar Odeh, as oven aromas wafted across a Jerusalem street.
The Palestinian entrepreneur has spent the past few months watching gourmands drift in and out of his new eatery, Taboon, named after the traditional clay oven.
Customers eat dishes like Armenian lahmajoon, a thin pizza with minced meat and spices that Odeh remembers being sold to hungry crowds in the Old Town decades earlier.
– Armenian dishes are part of Palestinian culture, said Odeh, whose bar also serves beer and wine from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“This is extremely important because this emphasizes the Palestinian presence and entrepreneurship,” he said. “We have to be proud of our products.”
Opened last year in what was once the family’s souvenir shop, Taboon is part of a string of new Palestinian bars, cafes and restaurants.
Beyond those within the old city walls, they have appeared in other areas of annexed East Jerusalem, such as the Sheikh Jarrah area, or further afield in Ramallah in the West Bank.
They range from a fine dining experience to fusion menus, which mix Palestinian ingredients with European dishes, according to Izzeldin Bukhari, who runs food tours and cooking classes in Jerusalem.
“It’s a great start; we’re really at the beginning,” said Bukhari, who plans to offer consulting services to business owners looking to revitalize their restaurants.
“Everybody was doing pretty much the same thing, but lately I’ve seen people step up and do a new concept, new ideas,” he said.
Showcasing the breadth of Palestinian dishes and products remains central to Dalia Dabdoub, who manages Taboon and owns bars in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Jericho.
“We want to change the industry by making more food that people don’t know,” she said.
A variety of locally famous aubergines sourced from Battir, a village in the Bethlehem area, will soon be on the Taboon menu, while some produce is imported from Gaza.
“I always try to choose tomatoes; when they come from Gaza they are really red and they are more flavorful,” Dabdoub said.
Green chillies from Gaza, meanwhile, are particularly fierce.
The emergence of new eateries builds on the Old Town’s hole-in-the-wall history, specializing in a single dish such as falafel.
Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi grew up on home cooking, like school packed lunches with cauliflower fritters stuffed in pita, and went out to eat certain foods.
“I remember carrying a plate and going to the hummus boy,” Tamimi said, talking excitedly about beloved dishes including stuffed vine leaves and squash.
Such traditional foods and modern elements were collected in the chef’s cookbook from 2020: ‘Falastin’.
“Just 10 years ago, if you went to a publisher and said I wanted to publish a book about Palestinian food, they’d say, ‘Who’s going to buy it?'” said Tamimi, who moved to London more than two decades ago .
A growing interest in Palestinian food abroad is linked to a shift away from presenting Mediterranean or Middle Eastern food as one set of recipes.
“Now you see more focus on the country, or the place and their food… I think it’s a wonderful thing,” said Tamimi, who has a number of cookbooks and runs restaurants with Israeli business partner Yotam Ottolenghi.
Israelis have proven more successful than Palestinians when it comes to branding local food, Bukhari noted, including an image of an Israeli flag atop falafel at the Tel Aviv airport.
“They’re very good at marketing it,” the SacredCuisine founder said. “We leave a void for the Israelis to talk about our food.”
But the Palestinians are catching up internationally, with Bethlehem chef Fadi Kattan set to open a London restaurant later this year.
Tamimi himself will return briefly to Jerusalem for a stay at the historic American Colony Hotel in October.
His two-week menu follows an earlier event where the chef saw how much has changed on the city’s food scene.
“It was the first time I worked with an entire team of Palestinians,” he said.
