Food
What to eat, where to find it, what it costs.
235 Food
Muhammara
Aleppo’s own mezze: red pepper, pounded walnut, pomegranate molasses and olive oil. The cook sets the heat; the sour sweetness comes from the molasses.
Variable — ask the price of a mezze plate when you sit down · Aleppo
Cherry Kebab
Aleppo’s signature plate: small lamb meatballs cooked in sour cherry sauce, thin bread beneath, toasted pine nuts above. Sour and sweet on the same spoon.
Variable — ask the price of a portion when you order · Aleppo
Kibbeh
A shell of fine bulgur around browned mince, onion and walnut. Aleppo counts dozens of versions: fried by hand, baked in a tray, in yoghurt, with quince.
Variable — ask the price per plate or per piece when you sit down · Aleppo
Halawet el-Jibn
The dessert of Hama: a dough of semolina and melted cheese, rolled around clotted cream and finished with syrup and crushed pistachio. Eat it the day it is made.
Variable — ask the price per portion or per kilo at the counter · Hama
Fatteh
Torn flatbread under chickpeas, garlic yoghurt and pine nuts fried in butter. Damascus builds its breakfast on this plate, and the pot is empty by noon.
Variable — ask the price of a plate when you order · Damascus
Al-Nawfara Café
At the foot of the steps below the Umayyad Mosque’s eastern gate. The hakawati climbs onto his chair at 20:00 and reads for half an hour. Tea, coffee, narghile.
Tea, coffee and narghile — no food, this is a coffee house · Variable — ask the price of tea and narghile when you sit down · Damascus
Bakdash Ice Cream
The same shop halfway along Souq al-Hamidiyah since 1885. Booza is made with sahlab and mastic, then pounded with wooden mallets in front of the counter.
Pounded booza — sahlab, mastic, topped with Aleppo pistachio · Variable — ask at the counter; cash only · Damascus
