Abu Abdo, the ful house in Aleppo

One of the oldest shops in Aleppo, and it does one thing: ful, the stewed fava bean breakfast. Abd al-Razzaq al-Masri opened it in 1885 in Jdeideh, next to Sahat al-Hatab. His nickname was Abu Abdo, and that became the name of the shop. The menu still runs on one line — ful, hummus, tahini.

What to eat

The beans sit overnight in copper vats over a low flame and are served from the morning on, which is how they soften without breaking up. The plate is filled out with tahini and olive oil, and a thin splash of red pepper paste goes on top. Damascus-style and Aleppo-style ful are made separately here, so say which one you want.

Getting there

The shop is in Jdeideh, right beside Sahat al-Hatab. There are no coordinates on this page, and that is deliberate: our two independent sources fall about 430 metres apart, because the shop moved to the next street at the end of 2012. A wrong pin is worse than no pin, so no map is drawn — ask for it in Jdeideh and you will be pointed there.

The shop’s story

The founder was Egyptian, and for a long time this counter was the address that brought ful to Aleppo. Arabic sources list Sayyid Darwish, Umm Kulthum and Sabah Fakhri among its guests. The building was badly damaged in the fighting of 2013; this corner of Jdeideh sat inside the front line in those years.

Before you go

This is a morning shop. It opens early, and by the afternoon there is not much point. Confirm that it is open before you walk over — after the damage and the move, the traces we have are not recent, and opening hours are the fastest thing to go out of date in food. Ask the price at the counter.