Syrian chef and refugee Imad Al Arnab on his journey from war-torn Syria to opening his dream restaurant in Soho
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Channel 4 News
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When he fled his war-torn hometown of Damascus, Imad Al Arnab spent three dangerous months smuggled in lorries trying to reach Europe. He arrived in the UK in the autumn of 2015 with a fake passport and just £12 in his pocket.
Now, the Syrian chef has opened his own restaurant in Soho, and written a cookbook that is as much a celebration of his homeland as a reflection of his experience as a refugee.
Today on Ways to Change the World, Imad Al Arnab joins Krishnan Guru-Murthy to talk about fleeing Syria and his journey from losing everything in the war to rebuilding a life in the UK.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. I'm Krishnamgari Murphy and this is the podcast |
| 0:06.5 | in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and the events |
| 0:11.1 | that have helped shape them. We are in London in Carnaby Street in a restaurant at the |
| 0:17.4 | top of Kingley Court called Imad Sirian Kitchen and the man who was brought as this wonderful |
| 0:24.4 | place is Imad Alana. Now he has a book about his food and his own journey and in it he says, |
| 0:32.6 | my name is Imad Alana and I was a refugee and asylum seeker, a displaced person and illegal |
| 0:40.6 | immigrant. What does that make you think of? That's what we're going to explore a little today, Imad, |
| 0:46.8 | thank you for having us. Thank you so much for coming. And you know let's begin with the food |
| 0:53.6 | you've put on a little spread for us and it looks amazing. What do you have? So I wanted to have |
| 0:59.9 | like a mixture between Damascus and London. It's all amazing and I'm going to tuck in while we |
| 1:09.2 | talk because I mean you called the book a love letter from Damascus to London and that's what |
| 1:14.0 | this is, isn't it? This is your life in Syria, brought to London and brought to life in London. |
| 1:21.5 | But it was a hell of a journey getting here. It was. So tell me first of our life in Damascus, |
| 1:27.9 | well what was your life in Damascus before the war? Exactly, actually I always like to remember my |
| 1:34.4 | life in Damascus before the war because I don't think I had a life in Damascus during the war, |
| 1:42.5 | somehow I lost my whole life. It's not only restaurants, houses, |
| 1:49.7 | newspapers, coffee shops. It's not only that. I felt like somehow if I lost my city, |
| 1:56.6 | you know, it was more than losing, losing stuff. It was much, much more because I don't know how |
| 2:05.0 | to describe it. But when you sit, when you are in a constant zone or a water round you, |
| 2:10.5 | you will be always but like, oh, this is going to happen. I need to. But for us in Syria before |
| 2:17.4 | the war, it wasn't that way. Like we had peaceful, not only peaceful actually, it was amazing. |
| 2:25.5 | We had an amazing time in there because of all the businesses. It was a holiday place. |
... |
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