Six years after opening Imad’s Syrian Kitchen in Soho’s Kingly Court, Imad Alarnab is launching a follow up in east London. Imad’s Syrian Kitchen two will arrive in Shoreditch’s Norton Folgate precinct in November, joining other restaurants in the development including Osteria Angelina and Noisy Oyster. It comes a little more than a year since Alarnab opened his more casual cafe and deli Aram, in Somerset House.
The new restaurant will take the same approach to Syrian cuisine as the original: home-style cooking using traditional ingredients with a few modern updates. Here that’ll equal beloved Alarnab classics like jawaneh (crispy cauliflower with pomegranate glaze); dips like baba ghanoj and chickpea-topped hummus; and shish tawook (grilled chicken with spiced potato and harissa mayo). But there will also be yet-to-be-confirmed dishes exclusive to the Shoreditch spot.
Alarnab’s native Damascus inspires the 71-cover space’s design, with nods to the capital city’s homes and souks, and the tilework that patterns the city. His family’s history working in textiles reveals itself in hanging lanterns, lamp shades, a sofa and paintings he’s personally sourced from Syria.
The new restaurant marks a return to the area for Alarnab, who began the first iteration of Imad’s Syrian Kitchen as a pop-up on Columbia Road in 2017. But it came off the back of years running his own restaurants and cafes in Syria; he sought refuge in London in 2015 after fleeing the war in Syria, and soon began cooking dishes from his home country at supper clubs and fundraisers raising money for charities like Choose Love. (Last year, Alarnab was able to return to Syria for the first time in more than 10 years, following the end of the civil war and the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024.) He’s also sought to educate Londoners about the specifics of Syrian cooking, and in 2023 released a cookbook sharing his recipes.
“It feels very special to be returning to east London now, almost a decade later, with a permanent home for Imad’s Syrian Kitchen,” Alarnab said in a statement. “There’s a real sense of coming full circle, but this time we’re bringing everything we’ve learnt and everything the restaurant has become to a new generation of Londoners.”
Imad’s Syrian Kitchen opens on November 18 at Blossom Street, E1 6PL.
