When read about a place in London that was making booza al-haleb, a Syrian pistachio ice milk, I knew how I would be spending my afternoon. But when I got to Diwan Damas it seemed that my culinary quest for this treat, so rarely found outside of the Middle East, might have been in vain. Aside from a shocking neon blue bubblegum flavor, the ice cream freezer outside the shop was filled with chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla, and other familiar flavors. I tried to not look too disappointed as the shopkeeper bounded forward, eager to serve me. When I inquired about the mythical booza al-haleb, he smiled and pulled out what looked like a white Swiss roll studded with pistachios from behind the counter. He explained that whereas ice cream is made by whipping air into a custard base, booza al-haleb is made by kneading the air out of frozen milk that has been thickened with mastic gum, the resin of an evergreen shrub, and sahlep, the powdered root of the orchid. They form this stretchy mixture into thick slab, cover it in the most flavorful Iranian pistachios, and roll it up. I watched as he sliced one end off, gave it a twist and popped it in a cup. “This is the only place in Europe where you will find booza al-haleb.” Without the air it melts very slowly, giving me ample time to check out the other wonders of Diwan Damas with Mahmoud* as my guide.
The view is a seemingly endless landscape of brown and green— tray upon tray of bronzed pastries topped with chopped pistachios. I needed a guide to recognize the rich variety of what was on offer. We began with katayef, fluffy pancakes that are filled with either slightly salted cheese or chopped walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon and then drizzled with a lemony syrup. Next door was a platter of Awwammat, which positively glowed from their two baths: first a dip in hot oil followed by a sugar syrup soak. As Mahmoud said, an awameh is like childhood: so intensely sweet you can’t imagine having more than one. A dose of cream is in order and for that we have to head to central Syria.
According to Mahmoud, pastry chefs in the city of Hamah are known for their use of ashta, a cousin of clotted cream. Shabiyat, are a perfect expression of that tradition. Crisp layers of phyllo dough are folded over a dollop of ashta and dipped in pistachios. Moving down the counter, and geographically south, we encountered the specialty of Homs: halawet al jeben, mild cheese pancakes stuffed with cream. In this sea of cream, it was hard to ignore a tray of bright red kunafa.
The color denotes that this is kunafa nabulseeya, that is, kunafa from Nablus, Palestine. Something like an inverted pie, the unifying feature of kunafa, in its many expressions, is the contrast between its two layers. Mahmoud points out that Arab sweets are all about balance between contrasting textures and flavors. The top layer of kunafa is a crust of either a fine semolina or a thin noodle like pastry, which confusingly is also known as kunafa, or both. The bottom layer is either a mild cheese or cream. Served warm with a dusting of pistachios and drizzle of syrup, the creamy layer softens and stretches beneath the crisp shell.
At first I had the impression that I had stumbled upon a hidden gem but with the setting sun came a constant stream of customers. Some stopped in for a chat and a man'oushe, a savory flatbread topped with za’atar, a spice blend of thyme, hyssop, sesame seeds, and sumac. The only chair in the shop, squeezed into the shop’s only vacant space, offered one lucky customer the opportunity to enjoy a warm slab of kunafa. Customers who felt guilty about even entering a sweets shop were assured that the kunafa diet would be the next health craze. While the size of the shop wouldn’t allow for the diwan, or assembly of a governing body, that the name suggests, there is palpable spirit of communing about the place. Each customer is greeted with such warmth that you would think everyone was a regular.
The integrality of customers to the shop extends to minutiae of the pastries themselves. When he began hearing complaints about the flavor of orange blossom water overpowering the baklawa, Mahmoud decided to try making it without. Since then they have stopped adding orange blossom water to the sugar syrup that they brush on the baklawa. While other stores are “taking advantage of nostalgic people who might settle for less flavour to recall a dazzling memory” Mahmoud isn’t concerned with sticking to tradition. Instead they’re striving for great bakalava, which should be, “crunchy but also soft--it melts on the tongue.” At its best, baklawa, is a perfectly engineered ratio of buttery crisp phyllo dough to roasted nuts brushed with only a small amount of sugar syrup. I usually find baklawa to be cloyingly sweet and soggy but according to Mahmoud I have been shopping in the wrong places. If you see pool of liquid at the bottom of the baklawa tray you know the bakers are dousing the pastry in too much simple syrup or clarified butter. "They're probably trying to hide something: dry phyllo dough or poor quality pistachios." The cashew-filled assabeh I tasted at Diwan Damas was just barely sweet and astonishingly light. With no soggy bottoms in sight I hardly missed the orange blossom water.
Indeed, challenging the restrictions of tradition seems to be characteristic of the shop. Although orange blossom water is traditionally an integral component of baklawa, like any business, Diwan Damas is making efforts to respond to the tastes of its customers. The difference is that by physically operating outside of these traditions, it has become a collaborative enterprise based on an ever-evolving notion of excellence.
The communality of this experimentation is also apparent when Arabic speaking customers assume a Damascene accent and vocabulary regardless of their own origins. This nod to the "Damas" in the shop’s name, which refers to Damascus, the birthplace of nearly all of the employees, is not the means for recreating an authentically Damascene experience. Rather it is a form of collective creativity rooted in the city’s ethos of openness. Mahmoud recounts how he and other employees often sprinkle their conversations with phrases that are local to the customer's homeland. This mutual posturing is a conscious effort on both sides but the result is a genuine intimacy. It’s as if through this linguistic jostling, geographical boundaries are blurred and a club based on a shared love of pastry, one that is unique to 121b Edgware Road, can bloom.
So often authenticity is the highest form of praise for foreign food. But no matter how much effort goes into faithfully reproducing a dish, ultimately food evolves with the experiences of the cook and the interests of the customers. While the people behind Diwan Damas are clearly committed to preserving tradition, to say its “authentically Syrian” obscures the stories and passion behind every pastry on their counters. In the words of Eddie Huang, “what’s authentic is when you make something that is authentic to your experience.” In the case of Diwan Damas those experiences are giving rise to a community and superior pastries.
*This is a pseudonym.