Beirutista

It’s not every day you have the privilege of meeting a Michelin-starred chef. Now add to that a Michelin-starred chef on your home turf, here in Beirut, cooking up a storm and treating you to his culinary majesty. Pretty extraordinary, huh? Well, last week I had the honor of one such encounter at Lebanese fine dining restaurant Liza in Achrafieh , a beautifully restored 19th-century palace with Lebanese quintessential motifs in each room.  Orchestrated by ChefXChange , an online platform that allows you to invite a private chef into your home, the dinner drew out nearly 130 guests who gathered to share in the original mezza dishes of Greg Malouf , an Australian-Lebanese chef renowned for his innovative take on classic Middle Eastern fare. The main dining room at Liza Beirut On the menu, things as imaginative as organic salmon raw kibbeh; chicken and date fatayer; pickled, smoked ox tongue on a bed of carrot labneh with fresh spinach; and lentil tabbouleh. Main...

We Lebanese are a proud people.  We exalt our relatively tiny country -- how many of you haven’t memorized our land area of 10,452 km 2 ?  We laud the glistening Mediterranean flanking us from the West, the Anti-Lebanon mountain range bordering us on the East, and the expansive greenery in between.  And we’re damn proud of our wines issuing forth from our verdant landscape. Rightfully so. They’re terribly good. So good, in fact, that they’re gaining real notice abroad. A glass of Chateau Marsyas sipped near the vineyards in the Bekaa Valley One such domain attracted a journalist from France’s esteemed Le Monde . Rémi Barroux trekked from Paris to Beirut to meet the sibling duo --  Karim and Sandro Saadé --  behind Chateau Marsyas and Domaine de Bargylus . In particular, Barroux was astounded by how the Saadés managed to push forward brazenly with grape harvesting and wine production in light of the numerous challenges facing this par...

Every evening on the drive home, we pass by a tavern-like restaurant named Bou Melhem. The place is hard to miss, notably for its endearing logo – a red tarboosh – and its elevated perch about the Sin el Fil street level. You can often spot a bustling dining room inside, especially on evenings featuring live music and entertainment. Maybe it’s because, ironically, Bou Melhem coincides with our daily trajectory that we’ve never pulled over to try it out. Or maybe it’s because we’re wiped out by day’s end that we continue the climb onward to our house in Mansourieh.  Either way, it was high time to try out the casual Lebanese eatery, and since full-time employment saps the better part of my day, I decided to bring Bou Melhem into the workplace. Not literally, of course. His proxy would have to do, so I committed to a full week of food deliveries, something I usually shun, on the basis that these plats du jour are healthy, hearty, wholesome, good old-fashioned Lebanese h...

I’ve been shopping online ever since e-commerce came into being. In fact, I still remember when Amazon was exclusively a purveyor of books, before independent vendors were even allowed to sell their goods in a virtual marketplace. As digital retail grew to encompass technology, homeware, clothing, jewelry, and automobile parts – in short, anything under the sun – brick and mortar shops became a superfluous formality. Let’s be frank. There’s nothing more time-, cost-, fuel-, or energy-efficient, nothing more leisurely or convenient than shopping online. No business hours to abide by; no lines to wait in; no shame in buying unusual products ( *cough*  kinky lingerie  *cough* ); no fear of being overcharged; and certainly no dearth of choices in finding the perfect and unique solution for your needs. Here in Lebanon, we’re still laps behind our peers in Europe, Asia, and North America when it comes to e-shopping. The trend is only starting to catch on, as credit...

If you’ve ever lived in Paris, you understand the dynamics of a café trottoir. Chairs are turned to face the sidewalk, lending a front row seat to the pedestrian action mere centimeters away. Service is prompt and mechanical. In fact, with your order you receive the tab, which you’re expected to settle immediately. Thereafter, no one can lay a finger on you. Idle as long and as pensively as you wish, free of reproach. éCafé  Sursock, nestled in the affluent Achrafieh neighborhood after which it is named, has little in common with its Parisian counterparts. In lieu of a trottoir is a greenhouse-like porch, alive with potted plants and verdure to render the perfect brunch hangout.  Pedestrian action? Well, maybe the odd poodle tethered to its domestic help, who are not uncommon in the area. Service is attentive, but far from mechanical, flowing as smoothly and silkily as a fine glass of Blanc de Blancs poured from the eatery’s bar. The only overlap, it seems, is the ...