From Cairo to Toronto

Maha's is a family affair. Wahba, 28, works in the kitchen with her mother, Barsoom. Her brother, Mark, 25, runs the front of the house and the drink orders. “You’ve got to try his honey-cardamom latte,” Wahba says, and again, her recommendation is bang on. It’s the kind of coffee you cup with two hands, making you forget to idly check your phone.

In fact, the whole café makes you want to sit in the moment, watching the calm servers navigate the packed space of only 25 or so seats. There’s an elderly couple quietly eating near the window. Across the room, a young family fussing over a baby. Two women in headscarves chat over tea.

Wahba, her mother and brother barely have time to take stock of their success. They arrive long before the doors open at 8 a.m. and leave long after they have closed. But when Wahba has a moment to look up from the kitchen to see a lineup forming at the door, what she sees “is beyond [her] wildest dreams.”

In four short years, they have become the destination in Toronto for Egyptian brunch, if not brunch. But the dream to open the restaurant had long lived in Maha’s mind. Back in Cairo, she ran the cafeteria at the elementary school where Wahba and her brother studied. After immigrating to Canada in 2000, she became an in-demand caterer. Throughout these culinary ventures, Maha stuck to the Egyptian classics and her talent for channeling home cooking in commercial settings became obvious to her children. But they were young adults, starting out their post-secondary lives and neither of them was ready to commit to the all-consuming reality and risk of running a restaurant.

Yet the idea tugged at the siblings and eventually they were on board. While Maha was on a trip to Egypt, they — while working together at a Leslieville coffee shop at the time — decided to pull the trigger.

“I called my mom in Egypt and I told her that I had just started putting together a menu,” Wahba recalls. “She was so over the moon. She never thought we would actually come around to the idea.” Things happened fast after that. Wahba and Mark stuck postcards in local mailboxes, announcing the opening. They posted on Facebook. That targeted hustle worked; on day one, the restaurant was full.

Wahba still remembers the first order: “It was our old boss at the coffee shop. He ordered the shrimp po’boy.”

She explains that composing the menu was the easy part. “It’s comprised of all our favourite dishes growing up.”

But, as the shrimp po’boy suggests, the menu playfully nods to those who aren’t familiar with her nation’s cuisine. “I really tried to make it super approachable to North American culture. At the same time, we definitely put Egyptian food on the map in Toronto when we opened up. I will claim that with so much pride,” she says.

The menu is centered on foole, and for good reason. "It's our national dish," Wahba declares. It's an ancient and beloved dish in Egypt. As the tagline on their website reads, the Barsooms are offering "5,000-year-old food, made 5,000 years later." Also spelled ful or ful medames, foole is a common staple across the Middle East and North Africa. Each region has its variation on the dish, but it is always made with slowly cooked fava beans.

In Egypt, foole is a breakfast for workers on the run. “There are men with foole carts and they sell it out of these large copper vats. People stand around these carts. It’s very communal; you’re standing, stuffing your face, about to run to work,” Wahba explains. She says it’s often served with hard-boiled eggs, pickles and a fresh vegetable. “Traditionally, you would eat foole with raw onion… that’s the die-hard Egyptian way.”

Another draw at Maha’s is its vegetable-centric menu. While not all dishes are vegetarian, most are, and that’s also a reflection of the Egyptian way of eating, Wahba says. “There’s a natural vegetarian component to our cuisine. We’re Coptic Orthodox and there’s a lot of vegan fasting for us.” She adds that climate and agricultural restrictions in Egypt mean that meat is scarce.

While the Barsooms are Coptic, they keep a halal menu and do not serve pork, making Maha’s a choice destination for Muslim Egyptians looking for a taste of home.

Some highlights, aside from the variety of foole, are the basturma egg scramble (thinly sliced cured beef with Egyptian spices), the date grilled cheese and a simple, but flavourful shakshuka. Showstoppers include the Egyptian falafel, an herb-heavy falafel wrapped around a soft-boiled egg served with cumin home fries and the date scramble, sweet dates that are sautéed then scrambled with three eggs.

Sitting at a table for one, near the window, I have a good vantage point of the workings of the small kitchen. The constant flow of orders and the tight quarters doesn’t hinder the easy laughter. Wahba smiles, busy at her station. The scene is a strange cross between the private kitchen of a happy family and a finely tuned commercial operation. The pride the Barsooms have in their work is unmistakable.

“There’s no dish that leaves the kitchen that isn’t 100 per cent," Wahba says, "I think my brother would say the same about the drinks. When we send food out, we’re doing it with every ounce of our being, because we’re representing our family, we’re representing our country.”

I poke my head in the kitchen to say hello to Wahba before I head out. We had so far only met over the phone, but she greets me with a warm, sincere hug. Barsoom slips me a piece of baklava. I step into the snowy street full, warm and smiling.

Maha’s
226 Greenwood Ave., Toronto, Ont.
mahasbrunch.com | 416.462.2703 | @mahasbrunch