Cook For Syria Event Wraps Up London Food Month

A successful one-week pop-up hosted by friends of #CookForSyria is preserving and celebrating Syrian culture for the final week of London Food Month.

Having started last Sunday with the final day tomorrow, the pop-up event is inspired by Imad Alarnab, a successful restaurant entrepreneur from Syria, who owned several popular restaurants, juice bars and cafés in his native country.

Guest chefs from London’s top restaurants have joined Imad to cook and serve up some of Syria’s most popular dishes at 180 The Strand, hosted by The Store Kitchen.

The event will see chefs from restaurants such as The Barbary, The Good Egg, Berber & Q, Salon Brixton, Caravan, Breddos Tacos, and The Hampstead Kitchen.

With tickets to the event costing £70, FtL can confirm that all food cooked by Imad will be Halal, though event organisers did caution that “we cannot guarantee that the guest chefs will be using Halal meat in their dishes” although “most chefs are doing veggie dishes”.

The menu has been inspired by the bestselling cookbook #CookForSyria which contains recipes contributed by chefs from some of London’s most exciting restaurants.

All profits from the sale of #CookForSyria will be donated to UNICEF’s Children of Syria Fund – a charity that provides aid to children caught up in one of the largest humanitarian crises since World War II.

More than 8 million children are in danger with displayed boys as young as seven being recruited to fight in the war.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who’s also contributed to the book, said: “Food has the power to unite people, families, communities, and this beautiful cookbook exists to make a difference. Full of colour and life, it’s packed with authentic recipes donated by Syrian families, and fresh twists from contributing chefs and cooks. It’s a keeper.”

Imad, who was a restaurant entrepreneur in Syria before being forced to flee to the UK when war broke out, has been successfully running a pop-up in Columbia Road Market called Syrian Kitchen.

But he’s determined to carry on the success he enjoyed back home by one day opening a restaurant here in Britain.

Curated by Clerkenwell Boy and SUITCASE Magazine, #CookForSyria is an international fundraising initiative that officially launched in London in October of last year, followed by Sydney and Melbourne in February and March this year.

The initiative hopes to encourage everyone, from the UK’s top chefs to aspiring home cooks, to raise money for Unicef’s Syria Relief Fund.

Find out more about by visiting the #CookForSyria website at www.cookforsyria.com.

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