BRADFORD may be the curry capital of the United Kingdom but a Syrian restauranteur is introducing our tastebuds to a whole new exotic sensation.
By Anila Baig
Anila Baig reports.
QUSAY Amer opened his second Middle Eastern restaurant, the Bab Tooma, on Leeds Road, Bradford and says customers are queuing up to sample the cuisine from his homeland.
‘Bab Tooma’ means the “Gate of Thomas” in Arabic and is a borough of the Old City of Damascus in Syria and a geographic landmark of Early Christianity.
Qusay says it represents unity: “It means meeting place; I can’t hear those words and not smile.”
The food makes you smile too.
His first restaurant, tucked away in a side street in the heart of Bradford, fast became a magnet for those in search of something a little bit different.
Mouth-watering multitudinous arrays of bejewelled hummus, stuffed vine leaves, the aubergine dish baba ganoush studded with roasted almonds and then there were the flatbreads ironically puffed up and light as air.
For meat-eaters there were the famous kebabs- cubes of tender lamb and chicken- served on beds of fragrant rose-scented rice.
It’s a feast for the senses.
But while the original Bab Tooma was a hidden gem, tucked away on Wilton Street near the University of Bradford, the second one is loud and proud, the site of the former curry house, Zouk.
Qusay, who opened the restaurant with partners Eyad Chatbatji and Vijay Kommaraju, said the location was a prime motivation for opening there.
“Our first Bab Tooma is tucked away on Wilton Street and it has been very successful and popular with students and through word-of-mouth.
“We got some excellent reviews on TripAdvisor. With the second restaurant we wanted a more prominent position and Leeds Road is great because it is a prime location where there are many shops and businesses and people come here for food.
“The majority of traffic goes past this street in and out Bradford. Also it helped me put the name out as quickly as possible.”
Although he is not from a catering or food background Qusay is absolutely passionate about the dishes he serves up at the restaurant.
“It’s a very personal thing for me, I don’t feel like I am feeding customers, it is like I am feeding my friends and I want their experience to be the best it can be.”
His story is extraordinary. He arrived in the UK from Syria back in 2012 to study for a Masters in Human Resources at Leeds Met University.
His town of Swaida, about an hour away from the capital Damascus, had been a largely peaceful place where people from all ethnicities and backgrounds got on.
“Nobody asked what religion you were, we all see each other as the same.”
However there were huge inequalities between the haves and the have nots and Qusay took part in a number of protests against the government.
“We don’t have a middle class, there is just very rich and very poor.”
Back then he thought he would be in the UK for a short time to complete his studies and then return but, by then, Syria was gripped by war and he couldn’t go back.
Instead he stayed and worked two jobs- at a restaurant and at a petrol station.
“For years I was only getting four hours of sleep a night. I would complete one shift then go to my other job. I never ever claimed benefits even though I needed the money so badly but I wanted to work.”
His friend Eyad, from the Syrian city of Aleppo, also worked at the same petrol station and together they cooked up a plan.
“I was ambitious. It had always been my dream to come to England but we wanted to establish a successful business too. So we thought about opening a restaurant.”
The pair didn’t have a catering background although Qusay picked up some tips working at the restaurant. Mostly however he was motivated by the burning desire for people to sample the food he had been brought up on back home.
Their first restaurant was in a former mortuary and both Qusay and Eyad re-decorated the place from scratch using YouTube to learn how to plaster the walls and sand the floor.
“It was a real labour of love, a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into renovating that place and we still had to work at the petrol station to keep money coming in.”
He used his mother’s recipes for the traditional Syrian dishes and asked for feedback from customers when the restaurant opened on December 29, 2016.
The emphasis was on using fresh organic ingredients, avoiding frozen food and including plenty of options for vegetarians, vegans, those with dietary requirements like gluten- free while keeping plenty of options for traditional meat eaters.
He asked customers for their feedback.
“We asked them to criticise us so we could get better. We have something for everyone, lots of vegetarian dishes and plenty for the meat eaters too. We grew from just three staff to 16 but we all mucked in and worked alongside everyone.”
There was demand for a second restaurant and here on a Tuesday evening there are plenty of diners enjoying their Middle Eastern dishes.
The new restaurant can cater for 120 diners and is beautifully decorated- an oasis of Middle Eastern delights in a sea of curry houses and fast food joints.
Sadly the situation remains ugly in Syria.
“The war has calmed down in my area but the consequences have put us on the poverty line.
“It is a very insecure place to live, there are an unlimited number of gangs and a complete absence of the police forces. The people there fluctuate between hope and despair.”
The coronavirus situation has also affected business but Qusay has been through so much you can’t help root for him and his restaurant to do well.
What does he see in the future?
“I want a Bab Tooma in every city. Everyone should be able to taste the food from my homeland.”
