Moustafa Elrefaey was named winner of the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs' Choice Award at Middle East and North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants this year. It took a journey across the Atlantic and back again for him to understand the flavours of the world before he gained a true appreciation of his own nation’s cuisine
In the second outing of MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants, Moustafa Elrefaey of Zooba restaurant group – flagshipped in Egypt but now with outposts in the US and Saudi Arabia – was named the winner of Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs' Choice Award 2023. It’s an unrivalled accolade as the only peer-voted award in the 50 Best programme and Elrefaey has a unique take on his own success.
“In Egypt we have a saying which means that the beggar doesn’t like another beggar,” he begins. “In our world, that means a chef doesn’t like another chef to be promoted or get one up on him. So for other cooks to pick me over anyone else for this award is truly crazy. It made me cry when it was announced.”
The vision of Elrefaey in tears at the awards ceremony, standing in the spotlight pumping his arms, leaping in the air, eyes glistening, shows what it means to a man who’s toured the world to co-create one of the most successful Egyptian restaurant empires in existence today.
Zooba, which now boasts 10 locations, has become a world-leader for Egyptian street food
Elrefaey’s brand, Zooba, heroes the street food of Egypt. It uses bright colours, accentuated flavours and vibrant takes on the country’s food to preserve centuries-old traditions and recipes, some of which date back as far as the Pharaohs. He has excavated the ingredients of Egypt’s rich past and presents them in a tapestry of contemporary plates. Although, as is the case for many culinary prodigal sons and daughters, it often takes the experience of a global kitchen to cherish the heritage of a country’s edible legacy.
Breaking America
Elrefaey had a humble start. “I was born in Tanta [a small city north of Cairo] and we lived with my grandma,” he says. “She had a very primitive kitchen set-up but we ate well. She would cook 10 or 12 different types of bread a day; everything was done over charcoal and in really old ovens. She was entirely self-sufficient: we had cows that would be milked early morning, a chicken coop for their eggs and vegetable gardens.
“I completely took this idyllic life for granted – I thought it was how everyone existed – and I thought it would last forever. When my grandma passed aged 95 it really changed me. It gave me the desire to move on and experience a different life.”
For Elrefaey this didn’t mean a new town, city, or even another north African country. He made the move to live with family in Michigan, US, in the early 1990s and fell into the restaurant industry. Within ten years he found himself in senior chef roles in celebrated restaurants, followed by a position teaching students at a highly regarded culinary institute.
Elrefaey worked his way up the kitchen ranks, from washing dishes to become an executive chef and now the winner of the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs' Choice Award 2023
“I washed a lot of dishes,” he says of his early period in the States. “I spoke little English and I quickly realised that I was on the lowest rung in restaurant society. When anyone walked into the restaurant they would greet each other – except me. I was always wet; I was the one who worked with the garbage. No one recognised who I was or what I did, although there was one woman who every now and then would bring me a coffee and speak with me. I can’t tell you how much that meant at the time.”
At this point Elrefaey made two promises to himself. The first: “to make it in this career, demand respect and become a chef.” The second: “that I would look after the weak people and those unable to help themselves.”
To this day, the first people whose hands Elrefaey shakes in his restaurants are his dishwashers, kitchen porters and cleaners. It’s been the same every day across the span of his 27-year career and this sense of altruism expands beyond his restaurants’ walls.
He has recently partnered with Fard Foundation and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to support those seeking asylum in Egypt, while he prioritises providing work locally to those who need it most at every level in the kitchen. He’s also a founding member of Egypt’s Slow Food Organisation and teaches young chefs through the Egyptian Chef Association, local NGOs and schools.
Ramsay’s kitchen dreams
Elrefaey returned to Egypt in 2009 after his father fell sick. It coincided with the beginning of a renaissance for the flavours of his youth. “I started to get flashbacks of my grandmother’s amazing cooking,” recalls Elrefaey. “I now understood Italian, French and American cuisine, but I began to realise how important Egyptian food is.”
It took a return to his homeland for Elrefaey to find his gastronomic calling
While looking after his father, Elrefaey pondered his future. Egyptian society was staring down the barrel of turmoil ahead of the 2012 revolution. Options were bleak; Elrefaey stayed positive.
“I started to have conversations with restaurateurs and chefs that I knew since returning from the States,” he says. “A Swiss friend called me as he had heard a high-end boutique restaurant was opening in Sheikh Zayed City and asked if I wanted to work there. It was like all my dreams had come true. I asked if they were going to pay me? He said: ‘You will get the royal treatment: like an American in Egypt.’”
For the launch of the restaurant Elrefaey was asked with which chef he would like to team up with for opening night. “I knew I would be cooking using the international skills I had learned in the US, making fine French and Italian dishes for the most important people in Egypt. I debated for a long time between Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay,” he says. “I settled on Gordon and by the end of the week he was with me, in my kitchen and we cooked together for the first night. It was magical.”
With star power behind the restaurant and Elrefaey’s energy, it had a flying start. It served royalty, high society and attracted diners from all over the world. “Then, all of a sudden, the revolution happened,” he says. “The whole country went to war; my customers went to jail.”
Eat like an Egyptian
The country’s social zeitgeist to go back to its roots coincided with Elrefaey’s own return to his grandmother’s cuisine. Cooking the fine dining food of Europe and the US now seemed flagrant and excessive in a post-revolution Egypt. “It really started to hit me that Egyptian cuisine was not on the map,” he says. “I felt ashamed that I had been advertising French and Italian cuisine and that I had never actually cooked in an Egyptian restaurant.
“The man who changed my life was Chris Khalifa, the founder of Zooba,” says Elrefaey. “He was a young American-Egyptian entrepreneur looking to open an Egyptian restaurant. He was an amazing kid. It gave me the chance to start exploring our nation’s heritage and it ignited a passion in me that has not since left.” The pair launched the restaurant with Khalifa as the visionary and Elrefaey as executive chef in 2012 and the restaurant group now has 10 outposts across three continents.
Tastings at Zooba are best celebrated around a tableya, a round table that encourages feasting without any social hierarchy
Zooba itself celebrates everything about Egypt. It’s a restaurant concept that appreciates heritage but looks also to the future. Dishes on the menu include the likes of taameya, a heritage dish featuring fava beans and fresh green herbs; hawawshi, beef brisket mixed with tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and coriander; and basterma, which is eggs scrambled with fenugreek and air-cured beef. All this is complemented by Elrefaey’s champion falafel, which won first prize at the London Falafel Festival in 2016.
The next phase for Elrefaey is true culinary archaeology. “I find it fascinating to wonder what the people ate when they were building the pyramids,” he explains. “I enlisted the help of a scientist to look at the hieroglyphics to try and decipher the recipes so we can create versions at Zooba. We have found some brilliant original dishes as well as the exact ingredients for their bread – essentially what today we call a sourdough. Amazingly, it’s the same as the bread my grandmother used to make all those years ago.”
A man who has come full circle in terms of the appreciation of his country’s cuisine, his own cooking style and as an ambassador for Egyptian food, Moustafa Elrefaey is a worthy recipient of the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs' Choice Award 2023.
Now watch the video with Mustafa Elrefaey, winner of the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs' Choice Award 2023
The list of Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, was announced at a live awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi. To stay up to date with all news and announcements, browse the website and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
