Saeb Sha'ath first moved to Belfast for university in the 1990s, and has now opened a café restaurant to bring authentic flavours of Lebanon to the heart of the city.
Deerah opened on Royal Avenue in Belfast city centre in July 2021 after Saeb began to miss the fresh flavours of his home cuisine.
Focusing on fresh, high quality produce served up in an authentic way, he said the city was ready for such a spot to open.
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First moving to Northern Ireland to study, Saeb met his wife here and got married. After leaving to travel back to the Middle East for work in countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, he was soon on the return to settle down in Belfast.
"As they say, you can take the girl out of Belfast, but you can't take Belfast out of the girl," Saeb laughed.
"But to be honest, Belfast is my favourite city, it feels like my hometown now, I'm a Belfast boy! If I go anywhere, I really miss the city."
In the past year since opening, Saeb and the team at Deerah have been serving up homemade dishes such as shawarma, hummus and falafel to a wide range of customers including tourists. As well as this, they've been able to build up a strong group of regular customers.
Saeb said he was "surprised" to see so many people in Northern Ireland who know a lot about Middle Eastern food and culture, and many more who want to learn.
He said: "A place like this was definitely needed. I'm surprised when I see how many people in Belfast know about Middle Eastern food, or they've been to the Middle East and know a few Arabic words.
"There are even a lot of people in Belfast who are fluent in Arabic now. I studied, married, and have lived in Belfast, and was surprised to see the amount of people who know the culture and dishes very well.
"But here, we are the real McCoy, as they say. I decided two or three years ago I wanted to start a Lebanese restaurant with fresh, authentic food.
"I couldn't see any authentic Lebanese food here so I met up with a couple of Lebanese chefs and started designing this place to have the same authentic atmosphere like you are in a café the Middle East.
"We have a lot of regular customers who swear by the food now which is great to see. We have common dishes like hummus and falafel, but you won't taste anything like it here.
"It's not prepared in advance, a customer may wait a little longer than somewhere else as everything is cooked fresh."
Saeb said he feels proud to see how Deerah is now flourishing, despite setting up during the difficult backdrop of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Now, amid the cost of living crisis, Saeb said he's dedicated to helping customers as much as possible by keeping their prices frozen.
"I feel a sense of achievement now we've done this," he said. "It was a lot of hard work in the planning of the restaurant as this is a listed building too. The rising prices have been tough as well.
"But even with inflation, we've kept the prices frozen as we know people's wages didn't go up, we're trying to bite the bullet and keep our prices the same as much as we can. This has kept our followers coming and I'm glad, I don't want to lose them."
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