It’s a very good question, and I feel like when it comes to that kind of question, the answer should be something you don’t mind eating every day, right? It’s gotta be the za’atar man’oushe at Ladyhawk. It’s my signature. I mean, I can’t help myself. Every time I’m at Ladyhawk—like, almost every day—it makes me a bit fat, but it’s worth it.
It’s the food of the poor, technically. It’s a very cheap flatbread, folded together, and we usually eat it for breakfast. It’s a bread that has za’atar. Za’atar is like a wild thyme mixed with sesame, sumac, and extra virgin olive oil. And then you bake it, and then you just enjoy it.
The best way to eat it, and this is how I grew up eating it, is you open it and put some labneh in it, some slices of tomato, mint, cucumber, olives—all this kind of stuff—and you make it like a sandwich. Delicious. It’s aromatic, it’s everything you want for your palate when you eat it, right? Salty, tangy.
I wanted to have this item on the Ladyhawk menu because I wanted it to scream, ‘Yes! This is Chef Charbel’s food,’ but I also wanted to elevate it a bit, so I went the extra mile. I made a dough fermented for 48 hours, and then I got the best za’atar you can ever get, imported from Lebanon. I import Lebanese olive oil, too.
So I’m trying to make it as authentic as I can, and then, once it’s baked, I do toppings of labneh and tomato sauce made from onion, garlic, tomato, pomegranate molasses, or spice. It’s very tangy and delicious. And then the third topping is herb purée made from parsley, mint, and basil, and it looks like the same color of the Lebanese flag—white, red, and green—and it has all the flavors that usually go into za’atar, but in a bread-and-butter kind of dip. Every time I work at Ladyhawk, I have it. I tell the guys, make me one. Sometimes I take one home.
Dining and Cooking