There are cookbooks that tell you what to cook. And then there are cookbooks that make you want to book a table, pour yourself a glass of wine and become a regular.
Published on 10 September, the new book comes from Nathalie Moukarzel and Meg Doherty, the duo behind Shoreditch favourite Sohaila and its social enterprise arm, Fat Macy’s. It contains more than 100 Lebanese-inspired recipes, but the food is only half the story. The other half is about family, hospitality and what can happen when you give people a proper seat at the table.
Sohaila, the restaurant, opened on Shoreditch High Street in 2022 and is tucked into an unassuming stretch along from Liverpool Street – it’s itimate, buzzy and quietly stylish, with Lebanese-inpsired sharing plates, excellent wine and the sort of warm, convivial atmosphere that makes you want to stay for another bottle.
And then there is Sohaila herself.
The restaurant and book are named after Nathalie’s Lebanese grandmother – her teta – who is now 96 and, apparently, has absolutely no intention of retiring from the kitchen. Many of the recipes come from her family, with Nathalie having grown up cooking alongside her and absorbing the kind of culinary knowledge that rarely makes it into a recipe book: the shortcuts, the instincts, the things you learn by watching someone who has been cooking the same dishes for decades.
“Wonderful recipes from a fabulous restaurant. I’m overjoyed about this book!” Diana Henry
The result is a book that feels less like a collection of restaurant recipes and more like an invitation into somebody’s family kitchen.
Expect Sohaila’s signature hummus, smoky batinjan el rahib (Lebanese aubergine salad), toasted pitta fattoush, spinach fatayer and chicken shish taouk, alongside slightly more unexpected dishes such as mushroom börek with port and brandy, grilled halloumi with cherries and candied walnuts, lamb sweetbreads with lemony tomatoes and labneh, and a whole fragrant chicken mograbieh.
There is also trout kibbeh nayee, grilled sardines with chilli tahini, chickpea and aubergine maghmour – essentially the Lebanese answer to lasagne – and, because every good cookbook needs a proper finale, kataifi pastry with macerated strawberries and honeyed cream. Even better: arak and cherry granita.
But what makes this book particularly interesting is what sits behind the recipes.
Fat Macy’s is the social enterprise founded by Nathalie and Meg that supports homeless Londoners as they move towards permanent accommodation. Its trainee programme gives people the opportunity to work in hospitality, including in the kitchen and front of house at Sohaila, helping them develop skills, confidence and a route back into more secure lives.
The story began years before the restaurant, in hostel kitchens where Nathalie and Meg first met. Ten years on, Fat Macy’s has become a significant part of the Sohaila story – proof that hospitality can be about considerably more than feeding people.
That gives the cookbook a slightly different flavour from the usual restaurant-to-book exercise. This isn’t simply here are the dishes you love, now make them at home. It’s a story about how food can create community, belonging and opportunity – while also being really, really delicious.
Beautifully photographed by Tara Fisher and Harriet Langford, the book charts the Sohaila journey alongside the recipes, bringing together Lebanese food and culture with the warmth and generosity that has always been central to the restaurant.
PR-ORDER NOW
SOHAILA: A Lebanese Cookbook by Nathalie Moukarzel & Meg Doherty, Synergy Publishing, £30.
SOHAILA
232 Shoreditch High Street
London E1 6PJ
sohailarestaurant.com
@sohailarestaurant