Knowing off Raqqa’s violent extremely recent past the last thing I expected was a great nosh, but that is exactly what I got at Al Fakher Restaurant in downtown Raqqa.
Apparently this made me quite ignorant as this restaurant is famous for its fine cuisine as well as cleanliness. In these parts when a bad stomach can cause real issues cleanliness is indeed close to godliness.
I will not go into huge details about Raqqa other than it was capital of Islamic State until 2017 and that 80 percent for it was destroyed by war. You can read my Raqqa guide here, as about Raqqa Street Food.
Who you calling an Al Fakher
The Al Fakher restaurant is located within spitting distance of the Raqqa Football stadium and while an old restaurant is a post war new build.
It is known for being clean, which it was as well as being the best restaurant in Raqqa. I would go further and say that Al Fakher was the best restaurant I had in Rojava, with the Al Burj coming a close second.
The menu at the Al Fakher
Like bloody everywhere in the Middle-East the menu comes via QR code, so we simply said to our fire to order bunch of stuff. Much like when we went to the Cinagon Restaurant in Zakho you can get a set meal. Instead we asked for 3.5 KG of meat, enough .5 kg each for the 7 of us.
Before we could even get to the meat though the “free stuff” the first of many cane out. This included all kinds of bread, but also a huge array of the dips that you expect when dining in Rojava and indeed Syria. The peoples favorite was baba ganoush of course…
Bring on Al Faker meat
The meat was for the most part what we would have expected with chicken, lamb and kofta kebabs served with bread, but also some curve balls. Chief among these was circular metal plate that had a pizza like layer of lamb. This was stained perfectly and was eaten by scaring it up with Syrian bread.
Generally for the most part we were served via a mezzo of meat that can be clearly seen through my pictures. Interestingly these were served fairly rare, or at least medium, rather than being soiled to a crisp as in many places. By the end I had meat and bread overload and almost did not eat later on. Of course I did and in fact had a whole fried chicken in Raqqa…..
You do win fetid with salad?
Starters, drinks, and everything not a main meal was also served free, with the salads looking amazing. Of course I did not eat any salad. I was though interested to see that the drinks were free.
Alas this did include Coke, or any fizzy drink, but rather aryan, the famous slaty yoghurt drink, as well as water. I can say that the Aryan, much like in the parts of the world, such as Damascus was rather good.
So should you find yourself in Raqqa. Don’t skip Al Fakher Restaurant…