Café Levant iftar meal for Ramadan: Jinan Afiouny and family providing free meals and Gourmet Safari tour

When she was growing up, Sydney woman Jinan Afiouny Ammoura spent her days helping out at her father’s store. 

After school, her mum would round up herself and her siblings and stop by Nut Roasters in Greenacre, one of the first stores in Australia to be selling Middle Eastern roasted nuts, fruit and confectionery – a family business originated by her great-grandfather 100 years ago in Tripoli, Lebanon. 

But in South-West Sydney, the Afiouny siblings would assist their parents before sneaking away to the milk bar next door for some after-school treats. 

Watch the video above

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Little did Jinan know that some 40-odd years later, she’d be carrying on her family legacy in that very milk bar. 

When the building right next to her dad’s shop became vacant a few years ago, she and her siblings jumped at the opportunity to extend their family legacy and give their community a taste of the Middle East, naming their new venture, Café Levant, after the historical name of the region.

Not only does the food and coffee on the menu give customers a taste of cultures throughout the Levant, so does the decor and ambiance, which traces the family’s history through Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.

The siblings take inspiration from their parents’ years of running the family business – not only in their “incredible” work ethic, but also in the pride they take in the quality of their food.

“We were always brought up around really beautiful ingredients and my mum is such a great cook,” Jinan, now 49, says of her mother Hala.

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Dinner at the Afiouny house was “never just dinner … the table was set, and we would all sit [at] the table to have dinner, and everything was presented beautifully. 

“It was just sort of brought up in us that food was really important nutritionally, and also taste wise, looks wise. It was just always really important in our family,” Jinan tells 9honey. 

The only time their routine differed was during the holy month of Ramadan, when the family would make the five-minute walk to her grandparents’ house, which had the perfect view of Lakemba mosque.

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“We would stand on the veranda as children, and we would just wait for those lights to go off, and then as soon as they went off, we would run down and we would go, ‘The lights are on, the lights on!’,” indicating it was time to break fast.

“We would start eating with the whole family, my grandfather, my grandma, my mum, everyone, my uncles, aunties, cousins. There [were] so many of us, and we would all just sort of like, sit around, sit around the table and eat together,” she recalled.

“It just really means a lot when the family sits down together to break their fast, I feel like that’s part of the spiritual journey as well.

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When her grandmother, who hosted these meaningful gatherings, died just over a year ago, Jinan found herself in the throes of grief at her funeral, when one voice in particular broke through. 

“There was a beautiful woman there who was telling us about what it means when someone passes away and the religious journey,” she says.

“And I said to my cousin, ‘My God, she just speaks so beautifully.’ All I wanted to do was just see and listen to this woman.”

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Thankfully for Jinan, she would get the chance to hear her again, with her cousin telling her the woman would be speaking at a retreat for a charity she was involved with, Elevate Itt.

It was at this retreat that Jina heard the stories of many women from across the community, including women who were new to Islam (also known as reverts). 

“They asked them what the hardest thing for them was as reverts, and they said being lonely in Ramadan, that was the hardest part for them,” recalled Jinan.

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In Pictures: Ramadan around the world

“It just really struck a chord with me that the hardest part for them was just being lonely, because they would break their fast by themselves. They had no family.” 

So when Ramadan came around, Jinan made sure to work with Elevate Itt to provide a place where not just reverts, but any members of the community who needed support, such as single mothers or students could come together and break their fast among like-minded individuals.

Jinan says breaking fast together “opens conversations about how blessed we are that we’re sitting around the table together, healthy, happy, under a solid roof with food that we actually feel like and that we can eat.”

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But it wasn’t enough to share this meaningful experience with women of Islamic faith, with Jinan making sure to open up the experience to the wider community, with the help of an old family friend. 

Former journalist Maeve O’Meara, who now heads award-winning food tour company Gourmet Safaris, has been friends with the Afiouny family for decades – first for news stories and now with Nut Roasters being one of her favourite spots in Sydney to show foodies. 

“I first met the Afiouny family half a lifetime ago when I was invited to dinner by a family member. I still remember Hala’s chicken rice and the warm welcome of her children –Jinan, Mohammed, Sophie, and Tarek – along with their father, Jimmy, who started Nut Roasters in the 1970s, continuing a family tradition begun in Lebanon in 1925,” O’Meara said.

With this food tour experience, customers will be able to experience the taste Jinan and her siblings have grown up with, with their mother Hala cooking up a storm for iftar and sharing it with those who may not have participated in the “beautiful intimate experience”, as Jinan calls it.

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“I really also wanted it to be also a bit of a learning journey for them as well… There’s lots of stuff that people can hear, but… when you actually can experience it in the heart of the community – because we’re in Greenacre, and across the road is a masjid [mosque],” she said.

“So they pray there [and] they get to experience all the men and the women walking to the mosque, when it’s time to eat. I just wanted that experience and the beauty of it.”

Jinan says if she and her family “can share food and our café with people and just show them the different side through that journey, then I think it’s worth it.”

Gourmet Safaris Iftar Feast will be held on Saturday March 15, with bookings available here.

A free iftar event for women in the community is available every Monday this March at Café Levant, located at 331 Waterloo Rd, Greenacre NSW 2190

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