Founder ‘The Syrian Chef’, Amsterdam, NL
The story of Jurriaan Momberg begins on a small island in the northern part of the Netherlands, called Texel. He is extremely proud of those roots: if you were to take a look at the Lonely Planet, you would find this place in the top-10 ranking of places to visit in Europe.
And quite deservingly, considering its local delicacy of lamb meat. Experts consider it to be amongst the best in the world, due to its unique taste: slightly salty, from the salty sea air and saline soil – and extremely tender and juicy.
Jurriaan, however, had bigger dreams than those that Texel had to offer him. On a fateful day, he took the ferry to the mainland in order to pursue his culinary dreams – and ended up in Amsterdam.
Here, he became the owner of Ekeko and Soeterijn, the restaurants of the famous Tropenmuseum (Institute of the Tropics). In this role, he provided a meal to over one million people – and cooked for a bunch of important people along the way, including Kofi Annan, Miriam Makeba and the Dutch Royal Family.
Not too long ago, he walked into a refugee shelter in Amsterdam, after having read a Facebook post requesting help with cooking. He thought that his expertise would aid those Syrian refugees greatly in renovating and using the kitchen.
Little did he know that his volunteering hours would turn into a fulltime job, running the Syrian Chefs: a catering company providing Syrian refugees with a job, in which they cook their own soul foods, that their mothers taught them, for a broader audience.
The success of Syrian Chefs started with a number of catering jobs, in which his chefs – none of whom are actually trained in this profession – cooked their specialty dishes of the Levantine kitchen, such as fattoush, hommos, tabbouleh, and tahin-cauliflower.
Jurriaan is an expert is finding hidden treasures!
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