These Bay Area Chefs Are Preserving Palestinian Culture One Dish at a Time

Editor’s note: This story is part of KQED’s Youth Takeover. Throughout the week of April 21–25, we’re publishing content by high school students from all over the Bay Area.

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s soon as I step into the Saba Center parking lot in San Jose, I’m hit by the bustling and lively environment of teens rushing towards concession stands with their friends, hand in hand. The traditional drumming of Muslim nasheeds (spiritual songs) and other Arabic music echoes all around. A line of food trucks sells everything from halal barbecue beef ribs to the trending Dubai chocolate cups. Most of the men all gather in one section of the parking lot, chai in hand, while the women congregate at the colorful hijab and abaya stands.

It’s a late Saturday night in mid-March during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims observe “suhoor” each day, eating one pre-dawn meal before they begin their day of fasting — usually alone in their own homes. But for one night each year, HalalFest hosts a giant, all-night, communal suhoor called “Suhoor Fest,” where the Muslim communities from all over the Bay Area can come together with a spirit of joy and laughter. This year, I’ve come with my family to get a taste of the foods trending among Bay Area Muslims.

At one of the festival’s most popular food trucks, Manakish, the earthy fragrance of za’atar fills the air. The truck’s vibrant blue and yellow logo pulls the attention of visitors, and the line is so long it extends to the festival parking lot. Named after a kind of flatbread that’s central to Palestinian food culture, Manakish is one of the many Palestinian food businesses at this year’s Suhoor Fest that are proudly owning their cultural identity. Popular items such as Manakish’s za’atar-and-cheese flatbread and shawarma fries quickly begin to sell out — evidence of how much the flavors of Palestine have taken center stage.

In fact, it appeared that around two-thirds of the stands at Suhoor Fest were either Palestinian-owned or at least showed some visible sign of solidarity with Palestine, like flags or stickers, even if the food wasn’t explicitly Palestinian. All of this comes at a time when Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza has brought the Palestinian people into the public eye more than ever. To date, more than 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, are reported to have been killed in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

At the heart of this Palestinian food movement is a deeper mission beyond the food itself: protecting Palestine’s cultural legacy. During a time when Palestinian American chefs across the Bay Area feel their people and their culture are under attack, both here and overseas, they’re using the preservation of traditional flavors as a form of resistance, embracing and speaking out about their Palestinian heritage more prominently than before. At Manakish, this resistance is expressed, in part, through its dedication to za’atar seasoning. Oakland’s Shawarmaji shows a similar commitment, using its traditional shawarma cooking techniques to reclaim and revive Palestinian food. And at Asúkar’s Palestinian-Cuban fusion pop-ups in Oakland, the chef is redoubling her efforts to ensure the Palestinian roots of her cooking are never overlooked.

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part from the food truck, Manakish Oven & Grill is a Levantine-inspired restaurant with locations in San Jose and Walnut Creek. Nabila Salem and her husband Feras AbuGhaben created the business as a way to reconnect with their Palestinian roots and share a piece of home with others. Alongside its traditional Palestinian dishes, the restaurant also offers creative spin-offs like its shawarma fries and pizza-inspired manakish.

Salem says she longed for the tastes and smells of Palestine — something to remind her of home and keep the nostalgic smell of her teta’s, or grandmother’s, kitchen alive. At the restaurant, she hopes to preserve her culture by using authentic, Palestinian-sourced ingredients. “The spices we use in the shawarma — we get them from Palestine. Even the za’atar and olive oil, we get them all from there,” she says.

For Salem, the za’atar is especially important. It isn’t just a spice blend, but a representation of her heritage, a connection to her land, and a symbol of the strength of her culture. The process of making it — by combining thyme, sesame seeds, sumac and other spices — is an important Palestinian tradition dating back to the 12th century. “We show resistance through our food, how we make olive oil, how we make za’atar, how long it takes to make za’atar — it all shows our resistance,” Salem says. “We’re here. We’re strong. We’re not going anywhere.”

With what’s happening in Gaza today, Salem says she believes it’s extremely important to be louder than ever — both through their food and on social media. When she opened the original Manakish in Walnut Creek in 2019, the restaurant was less outspoken about its Palestinian roots, mostly advertising itself as a “Mediterranean” restaurant. Now, she feels an obligation to speak up and be more bold.

“I feel like our food now is more popular than it was two or even three years ago. People now want to try za’atar. They now want to communicate — they want to learn more about Palestine,” Salem says.

Most diners probably think of Oakland’s Shawarmaji strictly as a Jordanian restaurant, with its focus on serving shawarma like it’s made on the streets of Amman, Jordan: layers of marinated meat stacked on a tall rotating spit, cooked slowly until tender, then sliced off and wrapped in warm pita with garlic sauce and pickles.

But chef-owner Mohammad Abutaha explains that he’s actually of Palestinian descent. His grandparents were born in Yaffa, while he was raised in Amman, where his dad was born. And in the past year and a half, in particular, Abutaha has put his Palestinian identity front and center at both Shawarmaji locations, in Oakland and Santa Clara, and Teta Nalah, his new “Arab soul food” restaurant, as well as on social media, where he shares traditional Palestinian recipes and information about fundraisers and protests related to Gaza.

For Abutaha, keeping his food “authentic” isn’t just about holding on to traditions, but also using them as a way to spark conversation about each dish’s Palestinian origins. On the surface, Shawarmaji has a typical shawarma spot menu: falafel, chicken and beef shawarma, and a range of Levantine salads. “My path is more about recreating the food I grew up eating, preserving the culture and the original food,” Abutaha explains. His food reclaims the flavors of Palestine and Jordan, even if it’s just by simply preserving the original spices and cooking methods, resisting the need for it to be “whitewashed” or “catered to a certain audience.”

However, this approach isn’t always met with positive reviews. He acknowledges, “You know, people aren’t gonna like the garlic sauce — ‘it’s too garlicky, blah, blah, blah,’ — but that’s something I didn’t wanna compromise on because that’s how I ate it.” By keeping the garlic sauce authentic to how it’s served in Jordan, Abutaha hopes to preserve all the hard work that went into creating shawarma — the years of his ancestors’ labor that ought to be remembered. His refusal to compromise on those flavors is his way of standing up for his Palestinian heritage.

Meanwhile, chef Nicole Garcia blends both her husband’s Cuban roots and her own Palestinian heritage at her Oakland-based Palestinian-Cuban fusion pop-up Asúkar. The name is a combination of the Spanish word “azúcar” and the Arabic “sukkar.” She uses the term “mezze tapas” to describe the dining experience, which includes a combination of hybrid dishes — such as ropa vieja (a Cuban shredded meat dish) served over hummus — and more traditional Palestinian dishes like mujadara, which is made with lentils, rice and caramelized onions.

Through her cooking, Garcia aims to advocate for the struggles of both the Cuban and Palestinian cultures. “Food brings people together to recognize there are more similarities amongst all of us than differences,” she says. Since the events of October 7, Garcia says she has felt an even stronger responsibility to represent the Palestinian side of her identity. “When I’m at pop-ups, a lot of people will just overlook the Palestinian part and say, ‘Oh look, it’s a Cuban fusion,’” she says. “They’ll just totally overlook the Palestinian part.”

Part of her standing up for the Palestinian struggle has been through direct activism, like a screening of the documentary Israelism, where attendees ate Asúkar’s mezze tapas and discussed the rise in Jewish solidarity with the Palestinian people, and the pro-Palestine tags on all of Garcia’s food posts.

Garcia also recognizes that, especially in the Bay Area’s crowded Arab food scene, it’s important to offer something distinct — to show the richness of Palestinian culture through every dish. By sourcing ingredients such as her somak and olive oil directly from Palestine, she actively resists the overlooking of her heritage. But Garcia stresses that she’s always made sure to represent her Palestinian identity — it isn’t just something she’s doing now because people are talking about it on social media: “This is not a trend. This is humanity,” she says.

“Food is culture, food is identity. It’s a celebration,” Garcia continues. “And my people’s culture and identity is … beautiful and has every right to exist and thrive.”

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hen I finally visit Manakish’s new location in San Jose, I’m greeted by the soft glow of the colorful Moroccan lamps and the gentle hum of conversation amongst families looking at the menus. The za’atar flatbread comes fresh out of the oven, hot and crispy. As I tear off a piece, still steaming, the combination of cheese, earthiness and slight bitterness fills my mouth.

At that moment, I feel like I’m not just tasting any regular flatbread. I’m tasting the history behind it — the farmers who harvested the spices, the people who ground the spices by hand, and the families who passed the recipes down, maintaining the true flavors of the dish. And I’m overcome with admiration for the history and resilience these Palestinian dishes carry, and for the people who continue to keep it alive.

I take one more bite of the hot, soul-warming bread and think to myself, this is what resistance tastes like. And it tastes delicious.

Khadijah Ismail is a freshman at Notre Dame San Jose, a food enthusiast and a member of KQED’s Youth Advisory Board.