In London, a Syrian chef infuses iftar with memories of Damascus

He remembers his mother’s hands most clearly. She would slice tomatoes and scatter the seeds onto the balcony soil, coaxing new life from the scraps. In Syria, they call it a “green hand” – the gift of making anything grow. In London, Imad Al Arnab has grown something too: a restaurant that, each night of Ramadan, glows with strangers turned friends sharing lentil soup.

The Syrian-born chef now helms two of the UK capital’s buzziest Middle Eastern dining rooms – Imad’s Syrian Kitchen and Aram by Imad at Somerset House – but a decade ago, he arrived in the UK as a refugee with just £12 in his pocket. Back in Damascus, Al Arnab owned three restaurants – rooms once alive with clinking glasses and the scent of grilled spices – before watching them vanish under a sky split open by war, walls shaken to dust, storefronts torn apart.

Growing up, the natural path would have been textiles – most of his family worked in fashion and fabric – but when part of his father’s warehouse was destroyed by road construction in 1999, Al Arnab converted the remaining space into a takeaway with a restaurant above.

In 2015, convinced exile would be temporary, he left Syria and travelled overland through Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Germany and France before reaching Britain. During two months in Calais, he returned to what he knew best. With little more than a knife and a chopping board, Al Arnab cooked for up to 400 people each night. “I only lost my business, my house, my car,” he says. “My neighbours, they lost their children.” The chef still calls himself lucky.

Scott Campbell

Yet when Al Arnab speaks about Ramadan, he slips back to memories of Damascus. “At iftar time, the streets were completely empty – everyone eating at the same time, praying at the same time.” He remembers the markets beforehand – marouk mamoun sweets made only in Ramadan, tamarind drinks, vendors calling out their goods. “It was overwhelming,” Al Arnab says, “but it was the best time ever in Syria.”

The chef can recall the build-up as vividly as the fast itself: afternoon heat hanging low over the old city, shopkeepers fanning themselves beside pyramids of dates, the syrupy scent of tamarind thick in the air. Women hurried home with bags heavy with bread and herbs, while children hovered impatiently, waiting for the call to prayer or the thunderclap of the city’s Ramadan cannon to slice through the stillness. Then, at sunset, a hush – doors closing, spoons pausing mid-air, tables filling.