Chef Greg Malouf is enchanting. There I’ve said it. Something about his charming Australian accent, the softness of his voice and the kindness of his ways entranced me, and then his flavorful food seduced me. Wholeheartedly. But lets start this “the way to a girl’s heart is through her stomach” romance from the very beginning.
A friend invited me to Malouf’s latest creation, Zahira, inside the H Hotel in Dubai. I know she’s always the first to know the best places in town and I gladly joined her on a quiet summer night in the city. As we sat down to talk to Malouf, immediately I felt a familiarity. It was perhaps the way he talked so passionately about making a moutabbal eggplant dip, yet transforming it with the addition of melted gruyere cheese. Or maybe the fact that he learned to love food by craving it as a child.
Born in Melbourne, Australia of Lebanese parents, Greg Malouf served his formal apprenticeship in several of Australia’s finest restaurants, before going on to work in France, Italy, Austria and Hong Kong. In early 2012, Malouf moved to London, where he took over the reins of the iconic Petersham Nurseries Cafe, Richmond, an establishment known for its love of prime, good ingredients, perfect seasonal dining all served in a casual, stylish atmosphere. While Malouf never veered too far off the restaurant’s philosophy, he did introduce Middle Eastern spices and basic Lebanese dishes to the menu, which ended up earning Petersham Nurseries a Michelin star later that same year.
Malouf is also the author of quite a few books on essential cooking from the MENA region, along with his former wife Lucy Malouf.
Fresh baked pita bread at Zahira
In Dubai, he was part of Clé Dubai, before going on to help open Zahira, an H Hotel concept, which features Lebanese staples kicked up a notch by the introduction of North African spices, great new Chef Malouf inventions as well as wines from the Levant. The one thing that has never left Malouf’s discipline in the kitchen is his love of pure, good, natural ingredients. His description — which I feature later on — of how to make the perfect hummus, the standard Lebanese dip made with chickpeas, is the ultimate example.
On my visit to Zahira, I was pleasantly surprised by the calm, stylish ambiance — casually stacked Fez hats created a still life right across from where I sat, while the plump pillows on the chairs made me feel I was resting on a divan — and the classic yet powerfully tasteful Middle Eastern food. Something that we’ve perhaps started to forget around the world, is just how great simple food made with the best ingredients can truly be.
Following is a short chat I had with Chef Greg Malouf, which of course as I re-read it now, makes me hungry for more of his wondrous food!
Chef Greg Malouf
What kind of music do you listen to in the kitchen?
Greg Malouf: It’s mostly classical music. At first the kitchen hated me for it, but now they are starting to, maybe not appreciate it, but at least get used to it.
What is a piece that helps you to create? Personally, I was imagining something from ‘The Valkyrie’.
Malouf: Debussy, I guess that’s a favorite everywhere, Rachmaninoff — powerful stuff that is invigorating. I just like the tones and the sounds of classical music. That’s not to say I don’t listen to contemporary stuff like jazz and whatever is happening now. I’m a big Radiohead fan and even Placebo, I don’t mind that. I listen to that quite a bit. Oh, and Arabic music, Fairuz, I’m a big fan, even though my Arabic is super poor. It’s all of what I learned from my mom and while I was growing up, what I remember from her is all the swearing, all the cursing.
That’s what we retain of languages anyway.
Malouf: But not from my mother! I had some pretty unforgiving kind of language going on, and I only discovered that recently, when I arrived here. Some of the guys were shocked. Mom used to say stuff like “May God rip your eyes out”, and such.
Which of course sounds like poetry in Arabic! What inspired you to become a chef?
Malouf: My appetite as a kid. I was so hungry for food as a kid. I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen. But in the middle of the night I’d wake up and go to the kitchen, and go to the fridge and eat most of the food there. I had an enormous appetite for Arabic food — no other food I was interested in as a kid. If I had labneh, hummus, moutabbal and kibbeh, I’d be happy for the week. Lots of bread and food in the middle of the table, raw diced lamb’s livers for breakfast and picked lamb’s tongue, my dad used to make that. That was quite a fascinating food experience in those days for me.
And going to school I was always ridiculed for having a lunch bag that stunk of onions and garlic.
Your lunch box must have been so different from everyone else’s!
Malouf: And I didn’t mind, after looking at what everyone else was eating.
Burrata with foul mudammas at Zahira
How does your creative process work?
Malouf: It usually starts, something triggers it and maybe I dreamt of something I ate as a child, or if I am out in a market and see eggplant, I would recall my grandmother buying them. She would do something really odd, look at the bottom of the eggplant and she explained she was looking at the bellybutton. To check if they had elongated ones or concave, the former she believed had less seeds. This will trigger something, then I’ll think eggplant, which I love anyway, and think of moutabbal, or baba ganoush. Lets do a hot baba ganoush and the French have a whipped potato with cheese, and I could do a smoked eggplant chopped into a pot with spices and then dump a lot of gruyere and gouda and whip it around and it becomes all stringy. It’s delicious. And it’s based on principles of Turkish cuisine.
This is usually a question I ask a filmmaker, but the way you talk about food reminds me of cinema. What do you want your audience, in this case your customers to walk away feeling after having had your meal?
Malouf: Almost… Not shocked but completely surprised because you have to understand that Middle Easterners really have not embraced their cuisine properly. They have embraced what they know, in terms of what they’ve eaten as kids but they haven’t thought further than that. And I guess that’s why I am here in a way. I’m talking about paying respect and having respect for the dish and keeping the integrity of the dish, but it’s also about seeing those dishes through my eyes. You can’t do too much to hummus but I want to make sure that the chickpeas are organic, perhaps from Mexico or Lebanon and they are beautiful, really good quality chickpeas; and that the tahini is Lebanese tahini which is the probably the best in the world, it’s not bitter and super nutty; the lemon is actually lemon and not citric acid which a lot of Lebanese restaurants use; and the olive oil is sourced from a decent producer, the salt is sea salt.
Lebanese restaurants have become extremely lazy. We need to focus on the quality of produce to get the basis dishes out. French, Italian and Asian food are all pushing the boundaries in cuisine yet Arabic food has hit a great wall. And it’s now time to save it.
Famous last words from Chef Malouf?
Malouf: Mine is a life’s work not really a job. I’m quite happy to go to someone’s house and cook for them for a bottle of wine. Yet, I’m lucky I get paid to do what I love.