Cumin. Or at least, what I think is cumin. 

It’s the first scent I’m hit with as I enter Tamam: a Palestinian restaurant that’s called the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood home since 2011. 

Whether or not my nose is, well, on the nose, the scent is warm, fragrant, and welcoming.

I’m ushered in by husband-and-wife owners Sobhi and Tamam Zobaidi. They speak quietly to each other in Arabic as they prepare a pot of tea for us to share. 

“I make for you anise tea—you can smell it,” shares Tamam. “It’s very hot. It’s anise seeds and honey.”

Sobhi and Tamam first met in Palestine and married in 2000, where they were both artists: Sobhi as a filmmaker and Tamam in theatre and television performance. They came to Canada in 2006 when Sobhi was offered an opportunity to work with Simon Fraser University.

To jump from a career in art to running a restaurant seemed like a pretty big leap to me. But the way they see it, the relationship between art and food makes perfect sense. 

“They’re both marrying each other,” explains Tamam, who is also the restaurant’s chef. “The way you treat art is the same way you treat food.”

Tamam, also a painter, has some of her paintings displayed throughout the restaurant. They depict different times in Jerusalem: a full moon, a Friday, noontime.   

The ethos behind opening the restaurant stemmed from a desire to share their culture, which they saw very little representation of in Vancouver.

“Food has become a major constituent of what a city is,” Sobhi shares. “We wanted to put Palestine and Palestinian cuisine on the culinary map of the city.”

It is an act of celebration and resilience.

“We believe we have a very sophisticated cuisine,” he continues, “but people don’t know it because our cuisine, like many Palestinian things, have been suppressed because of the political situation.”

To get started on a Palestinian culinary journey, Sobhi and Tamam recommend trying mujaddara (a traditional dish of cooked lentils and sauteed onions) and freekah (an ancient whole grain that Sobhi promises will make you “never want rice again”).

As with all cultures, food for Palestinians is more than just fuel.

“Little by little, not only us, but many Palestinians, have started to discover food not only as a thing to eat, but a thing to articulate your culture, a thing to carry out and introduce your culture,” says Sobhi. “It’s even more effective than other forms like poetry, writing, or film.”