What is Shakshouka?

Shakshouka is a dish you have to slow down for. Onion in olive oil until it begins to give. Garlic when the onion is sweet, never before. Tomatoes — ripe, hand-crushed, sometimes a spoon of last week's reduction stirred in for body. Salt early. Pepper at the end. The eggs go in just before service, the pan rocked gently so the whites set on the sauce, the yolks left soft enough to break with bread.

The name comes from the Arabic root shak — to scramble or mix. Across the Levant, every household makes it slightly differently. In Palestine you find it for breakfast, for late dinner, for the meal that follows a wedding. The point is the same: a single pan, a single bread, multiple hands.

Why we named the restaurant after it

When my mother made shakshouka in Beit Sahour, the house filled with the smell first and the conversation second. The dish has no glamour — it is fundamentally a peasant breakfast that became royal — but it has the rare property of making everyone in the room feel like they're being looked after.

That's the whole brief. Look after people. Feed them well. Let them stay as long as they want.

How to eat it

Bread, never cutlery. Tear, scoop, pause, repeat. Order tea if it's morning, arak if it's evening, water if you have driving to do. Wait for the person across from you. Don't talk about work for the first ten minutes.

And don't ask for cheese on it. Halloumi or sojuk add-ons, fine. Mozzarella, never.