Knock LA

Palestinian restaurants have contributed to LA’s culinary landscape for decades. In Southern California, a people with four thousand years of history has managed to preserve and maintain culinary dishes that have been prepared and eaten by their ancestors for centuries. Palestinian food is often grouped in with other Middle Eastern or Arab cuisines. This is due to Levantine Arabs having historically cooked iterations of the same foods prior to the drawing of borders and the growth of nationalism. Such variations were happening before the infamous Psykes Picot agreement, which was a private meeting held between Britain and France to decide how they wanted to split up Southwest Asia. This action laid down the foundation for the modern day borders seen in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Sinai today. 

What makes the Levant especially unique besides its history and ethnic diversity is much of the region’s food, such as falafel, hummus, warak enab, or shawarma, is represented throughout Southeast Asia, with each country curating their own unique spin. Musakhan for example, which is the Arabic word for “heated or warmed up” is an explicitly Palestinian dish, consisting of roasted chicken placed over a flat bread and caramelized onions, then topped off with sumac and extra virgin olive oil. The dish has been cooked and eaten by Palestinians for centuries and originated from cities like Tulkarem and Jenin in the West Bank, where early iterations of the dish focused heavily on incorporating onions and an abundance of olive oil. 

Although Palestinians face constant displacement and land dispossession, the art of preserving their culinary dishes survived and continues to triumph over the horrors of Israeli settler colonialism. Much of Palestinian food found itself across oceans in kitchens around the globe and throughout the diaspora, thousands of miles away from the land and villages they originated from. 

Los Angeles is renowned as one of the largest cultural hubs in the country, home to many different diasporic communities who have established successful restaurants proudly showcasing their cultures through the food they serve. The oldest known Palestinian restaurant in Los Angeles is Golden Dome Falafel in Bellflower, which was established in April 1993, with an LA Times article claiming that it may have closed down somewhere around November 1999. Mid East Eats is the first Palestinian home-based kitchen in South LA, with Sumer and Andy Durkee as the cofounders and owners. 

“I lived for three years in Palestine, and falafel was a big part of everyday life. But I couldn’t find the kind I grew up with in LA. We started with small pop-ups and events, and things grew organically from there,” Durkee shared during an interview with Knock LA. 

She also offered her perspective on the reality of being an openly Palestinian restaurant in Watts. 

“Luckily, many people want to support Palestinian businesses in meaningful ways, whether by coming to dinner, buying food, or spreading the word. Our neighbors and community have been incredibly supportive,” Durkee said. 

Food is known to bring people together. It symbolizes the power of community, gatherings, and a mutual love for heritage and the expression of cultural identity. There lives a quiet strength in cooking the food that your ancestors cooked and prepared, connecting yourself to a deep-rooted heritage that goes back thousands of years. 

“Food is a big part of Palestinian culture,” Durkee shared with Knock LA. “It connects us to family, land, tradition, and it’s how we welcome people and show love. Recipes get passed down through generations, keeping us connected to home even when we’re far away. For me, making Palestinian food in LA is a way to preserve our culture and share it with others. Food brings people together.” 

For Palestinians, practicing these traditions and claiming them as Palestinian is also a declaration of refusing erasure and cultural theft. As we witness the genocide in Gaza enter its third year, with the death toll surpassing 74,300 Palestinians and other reports stating that the actual death toll may be over 186,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since October 2023, taking ownership of Palestinian food and culinary traditions is essential so as to prevent it from being appropriated and mislabeled as “Israeli.” 

Palestinian restaurateurs in Los Angeles have to navigate what it means to represent Palestinian culture in the current state of the world while also living in a city that is ardently Zionist. Israel’s cultural appropriation of Palestinian and Arab food is extremely visible throughout the city’s infrastructure. Israeli restaurants such as Amir’s Falafel in Studio City or Hummus Bar and Grill in Tarzana, market, sell, and claim Palestinian food and other Arab culinary dishes as “Israeli cuisine,” in an attempt to erase the Palestinian and Arab communities that created and preserved them. 

Samer Ghrawi, owner and founder of El Mukhtar, a queer-owned Palestinian-Syrian restaurant based in Silverlake, said, “Preserving our cuisine means preserving those relationships, memories, and expressions of love. Naming it as Palestinian also honors the people who passed it down to us. When I make something my Teta taught me, I carry part of her with me and share it with someone else.” 

Many of these recipes that Ghrawi mentions were passed down through generations of Palestinians, foods that many in the diaspora are familiar with and were raised on. As Israel continues its rapid annihilation of Palestinian bloodlines, Palestinians across the diaspora have inhabited an urgency to learn about their cultures while also continuing longstanding traditions.

Durkee also told Knock LA, “Being Palestinian is a big part of who I am. The food we make, the way we host people, and the traditions we share are all connected to our identity. At the same time, being visibly Palestinian in the current political climate can feel scary and complicated. There’s so much conversation about Palestine, but a lot of the time Palestinians aren’t actually given the space to speak for themselves or share their own stories. For me, food is a way to do that without having to explain everything. People can sit down, eat, ask questions, and connect with us on a human level.”

Settler colonialism extends beyond the killing and theft of one’s land, but also through the claiming and theft of the culture of the people they are colonizing. Mislabeling Palestinian food as Israeli and propping up restaurants on the Boycott, Disvestment, and Sanctions (BDS) list harms Palestinians by negating Palestinian existence and identity in order to serve Israeli interests, whitewashing Israeli war crimes, and validating the cultural theft of Palestinian and Arab cuisine. 

“Supporting Palestinian businesses also means welcoming our presence and refusing to erase one another. No community should be reduced to stereotypes or judged collectively by the actions of a few. When we approach one another with curiosity instead of prejudice, we make room for connection,” Ghrawi said to Knock LA. “I try to extend that same openness to people from every walk of life, including those who have dehumanized me.”

Restaurant owners recalled receiving threats, harassment, and intimidation by Zionists online. In a recent article by LA Taco about El Mukhtar, the post was almost immediately swarmed with Anti-Palestinian and homophobic rhetoric and death threats directed at Ghrawi for proudly identifying and labeling his restaurant as Palestinian, Syrian, and queer-owned. 

“I had no say in that headline, and I eventually asked for the Instagram post to be taken down. People flooded the comments with Islamophobic rhetoric, including claims that I would be thrown off a roof in the Middle East. Others assumed I was a white American appropriating Arab food, as though being queer and being Arab could not exist in the same person,” Ghrawi told Knock LA. 

The relentless hostility pushed against Palestinians by Zionists creates a significant challenge for navigating Palestinian identity. It is not only about who gets to claim and represent the culture. The simple act of existing and celebrating Palestinian culture and identity results in virtual and literal attacks. In restaurants, where community and cultural expression is supposed to thrive, it then turns into a tense environment where Palestinians are constantly having to defend their existence. 

“I have traveled to the Middle East multiple times, and my experiences cannot be reduced to the violent stereotypes people were posting. Homophobia exists around the world. Using it to justify hatred toward another community does nothing to protect LGBTQ people,” Ghrawi said. “The experience made me think carefully about whom I allow close to me and what meaningful support looks like. My heritage and sexuality are nothing to hide or be ashamed of. I can be gay, Palestinian, and Syrian at the same time.”

Palestinian restaurant owners like Ghrawi and Durkee put heart and soul into the food they cook and prepare. Hospitality is second nature in Palestinian culture. Preserving these cultural dishes and staples means preserving the ancient stories and identities that are deeply attached to it all. Beyond serving Palestinian delicacies, Mid East Eats has evoked a strong connection for many Palestinians across Los Angeles, as many have expressed how much Durkee’s home reminds them of Al-Balad which is Arabic for “the town,” reminding Palestinian diaspora members of their homes back in Palestine. This isn’t a mistake at all, as Durkee expressed how she bought her house because it reminded her so much of Palestine, as the home-base kitchen is decorated in guava, fig and lime trees, and a stunning outdoor scenery perfect for late summer nights. 

When asked about why Palestinian restaurants are so important, Durkee said, “Palestinian food and people deserve to be seen. LA is so diverse, and food is a great way to experience different cultures. You don’t have to know everything about Palestine to support us. Supporting Palestinian businesses means showing up and spreading the word. It also helps people see that Palestinians are more than a political story. We have families, indigenous traditions, incredible food, and sharing it is a way to tell our story on our own terms.”