Dane was super excited when he welcomed us yesterday at Habibi’s. He’d been working on this project for 8 months with his artisan friend Christo, and it had finally opened. He had the idea of the Man’oushe bar – we’ll come back to it – for a long time. The decoration, however, came step by step. Starting with the plastered walls, the two friends ended up making everything with their own four hands. Everything, even the Man’oushe oven. And the result is incredible.

The previous potato bar on Rue du Bailli was radically transformed into an ode to Lebanon like Dane had dreamed of. Something positive, changing the narrative. A place where Man’oushe is king – a flat bread halfway between pizza dough and Naan – but where artisanal know-how, ecology and traceability of products are just as important.

Théo, who we already knew from Semsom’s kitchens, has taken the Man’oushe to another level. The dough, leavened for more than 24 hours, is made with water, leaven, organic flour from Teroirist and honey. It is then baked in the huge pizza oven and covered with Zaatar – a mix of wild thyme, sesame and sumac – as well as mint, cucumber and tomato (7,50€). This is what you should go for if you’d like to try the original version. But you’ll also find a series of super creative Man’oushes and other lebanese dishes. We tried a delicious roasted beets, orange mousse and Manouri salad (9€), a Man’oushe with slow-cooked pulled pork, tahini sauce, garlic and parsley, and a hummus served with a truly amazing homemade black olive oil – and an emulsion of coriander, chili and olive oil (7€).

As we were saying, they’ve set the bar really high. If you add the food to the place, you’ve already got two good reasons to rush there as soon as it reopens. And we haven’t even told you about the terrace yet.

PS : Habibi will be part of our next Brunch Club Box on April 25th, which you can order here.