Monitoring Desk
Islamabad: Anissa Helou, a Lebanese-Syrian chef, and author of many award-winning cookbooks, has been picked the winner of the MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants’ Foodics Icon Award 2023.
Anissa learned to cook traditional food whilst growing up and when aged 21 studied interior design and art history in London. Later on, while still living in Britain’s capital, Anissa worked at Sotheby’s. Afterward, she happened to run a Paris antique shop before the Kuwaiti royal family’s art adviser.
Anissa published her first cookery book, Lebanese Cuisine, at the age of 42. The book aided the Lebanese diaspora to create Lebanese food. The publication made it to the André Simon Book Awards shortlist.
Lebanese Chef Anissa Helou wins award
Following her success, Anissa wrote numerous books on food, including Feast: The Food of the Islamic World. This publication won the prize in the international category of the James Beard Foundation award. Apart from this, the New Yorker magazine chose the publication as among the top ten cookbooks of this century.
According to the MEBA’s 50 Best Restaurants, tahini, hummus, and za’atar are now available across the world’s supermarkets partly because of her efforts. Such action, according to the platform, is more than worthy of the Foodics Icon Award 2023.
