Levant book Cafe

Park Royal’s Food and Restaurants Are Built on Asphalt and Man’oushe - Eater London

"In the courtyard of Levant Book Café, water trickles in a stone fountain. The tables are occupied by customers drinking strong Arab coffee and playing chess on heavy wooden boards with ornately carved pieces. A waiter brings out the cafe’s specialty dessert — booza — a traditional Syrian ice cream made with mastic (a plant resin), that is pounded and stretched rather than churned. Its texture is almost elastic; its taste refreshing, subtly flavoured with rose water, topped with pistachios. Inside the café, shelves are filled with Arabic books, while Arabic phrases are painted across the walls and ceilings. “I live in London and Damascus lives in me,” one states, as if to make explicit that this Syrian café is as much for displaced Syrians to briefly forget their losses as it is for customers to be momentarily transported to Damascus." - Zahra Al Asaadi