How a family-run bistro became the Middle East’s best restaurant

(CNN) — When Mohamad Orfali was a child, his favorite meal was breakfast. At his family home in Aleppo, Syria, his grandfather would prepare “Treet Bel Laban” — an omelet with meatballs, served on top of garlic yogurt, and eaten with warm bread. “I have so many memories of food,” says Orfali, “but I think this is the best of the best.”

Food and family have always been a package deal for Orfali — now more than ever, as he runs a restaurant with his two younger brothers, the eponymous Orfali Bros Bistro in Dubai. Opened in 2021, their menu is a love letter to their Syrian roots and the culinary traditions the brothers grew up with, fused with contemporary Arabic and Mediterranean flavors.

A former TV chef, Mohamad is the chef de cuisine and charismatic host, while his brothers, Wassim and Omar, both pastry chefs, are behind the restaurant’s distinctive desserts. “We speak food. We love food, and we love people who love food,” says Orfali.

And it’s not just the brothers that love their food, but award bodies, too. The restaurant just picked up its first Michelin star this month, and earlier this year, the bistro was awarded “best restaurant” in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the 50 Best list.

“We’re very honored to get this accolade,” says Orfali on their most recent win. The restaurant’s debut on the 50 Best list back in 2022, just 10 months after opening, helped put the restaurant “on the map” with guests traveling from around the world to sample the brothers’ unusual cuisine, he adds.

“Now, Orfali Bros is like a destination for people who love food,” says Orfali, adding, “My award is when I see people come back one, two, three, four times.”

A multicultural menu

Orfali left Syria in 2006, relocating to Dubai a year later, and his brothers followed. “We started the business as three brothers, but my family is very big now — we’re 53 people,” he says, explaining that he considers his restaurant staff to be his extended family. “Different nationalities, different colors, different languages, different accents. And that is what I love. This is the beauty of Orfali Bros. This is how we represent the community, this is how we represent Dubai.”

The multiculturalism in Orfali’s restaurant is reflected across the country: the UAE is home to 200 nationalities, and the population is more than 90% non-Emirati. While the Orfali Bros Bistro is grounded in Syrian influences, it offers something Orfali calls “Dubai Cuisine” — not Emirati food, but an adjustment of global culinary traditions for the international palette, a way of allowing people from hundreds of different backgrounds and tastes to enjoy a meal together.

He’s quick to add that the menu is not “international cuisine,” though, which often “kills the identity” of its dishes, Orfali says. Many of the menu ideas at Orfali Bros stem from his childhood experiences or family cooking, using traditional ingredients but “rebuilt it in a different way,” says Orfali.

For example, one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, playfully named “Guess What?” combines a Lebanese Fattoush salad, Greek salad and gazpacho (a cold Spanish soup) onto one plate. Or, the “shish barak a la gyoza” presents an Asian twist on the traditional Levantine meat dumpling, drizzled with sujuk oil, inspired by spicy Sichuan flavors.

“We love to surprise people — for me, surprises create memories,” says Orfali.

Orfali and his two younger brothers lived, worked and studied in multiple countries before settling in Dubai, and their dishes communicate this multiculturalism: a nostalgia for home, yet the joy of embracing new experiences.

“I believe that food doesn’t belong to a territory or map, it belongs to human beings. There are so many ingredients that travel the world because they’ve been taken from one area to another,” he says. “Orfali Bros for us is a platform to explore something new.”

A “flourishing” food scene

Dubai’s restaurant scene has, until recently, been dominated by celebrity chefs and international franchises. But now, homegrown, independent restaurants are “flourishing,” says Samantha Wood, founder of UAE restaurant review website FooDiva and a Dubai resident for 25 years.

Chef-led concepts like the Orfali Bros Bistro exemplify this: “Mohamad (Orfali) is very hands-on, typically on the pass or engaging in story-telling,” she says, adding that the “tiny neighborhood gem” offers “innovative yet flavorsome cooking.”

There’s a growing locavore movement in Dubai — sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted global trade — that emphasizes produce and ingredients sourced in the emirate or UAE, which many of the independent diners have incorporated into their menus, says Wood.

For her, “Dubai Cuisine” conjures an idea of a “multicultural melting pot of every cuisine under the sun” — although she says that Orfali Bros Bistro differentiates itself from typical fusion cuisine “by showcasing cooking influences from Syria and our regional neighbors in a modern manner, and where possible, with local ingredients.”

And Orfali Bros isn’t alone in pushing the boundaries of fusion food: Jun’s and Chez Wam also “celebrate an innovative medley of cultures and cuisines,” Wood adds.

For Orfali, the quirky combination of ingredients, or unusual presentation, makes the storytelling element of his food all the more important. “If guests don’t understand our story, then they look at the plate from a different perspective,” he says. “The food is a journey — it’s my journey, my brothers’ journey, and the team’s journey.”

The success of Orfali Bros Bistro has inspired the trio to embark on a second project called “Three Bros,” a burger joint next door to their current restaurant. Here, diners will be able to order the bistro’s signature “OB cheeseburger” — a wagyu beef patty on a Hokkaido bun with secret sauce, cheddar cheese, and caramelized onion — along with pide, a Turkish flatbread stuffed with fillings, which will be removed from the menu at Orfali Bros and replaced with more innovative, unusual, and equally delicious dishes, he says.

But regardless of whether the brothers are serving up burgers or deconstructing their culinary heritage, family is the common thread that runs through their cooking.

“We build a relationship between us and the guests, and we make it family,” Orfali says. “It’s not about running a family business — the people that come to us, they feel at home, they feel like family.”

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