Interview (in 2004) with co-founder and former owner Monther Khouri, who grew up in Nazareth.
Before Askadinya, he had a restaurant serving Palestinian home cooking at Al Hakawati Palestinian National Theater. Monther sold his part of the restaurant and moved to Barcelona where he opened a new restaurant on Verdi St. no. 28 called .... Askadinya.

About the name Askadinya:
Askadinya is Arabic for loquat, an apricot colored local fruit. When this place was first built there was a big tree covering the whole place. "Aska dinya" also means "most delicious taste in the world  in Arabic.
The building's history:

It was built about 120 years ago as the servant quarters of a mansion owned by a Palestinian aristocratic family, the Hussienis. It was behind the mansion because it was not appropriate for aristocrats to see the back of a house.

About the design and renovation:

In 1992 there was a big snowstorm in Jerusalem, the roof caved in and the home was abandoned. I took the place over a few years later and renovated it with Abu Marmar, a friend from Kalandiya refugee camp who renovates old buildings and formerly studied film in the Soviet Union. The stone walls are about one meter thick and the metalwork appears to be from the original structure. We raised the original stone floor. The first two years, we took down the roof in the summer, but now we keep it up for the air-conditioning.

About the menu:

At first I hired a chef to create a menu with a modernized and healthier version of Palestinian cooking, which has a lot of fat and meat. But we lost clients, because people did not want food they could get at home. They wanted something different. Some admire how we changed, and others are sad. But business decides. Now we have a lot of Italian dishes, and things like Indian chicken breast with curry.

 

Customer's favorite foods:

Steak fillet with mushroom sauce.

 

Customer's favorite drinks:

Three kinds of draught beer  Palestinian Taybeh, Jordanian Amstel, and Czech Starobramen. We also sell a lot of Johnny Walker Red Label. In terms of hot drinks we serve cappuccino, espresso, filtered coffee and tea with mint. We don't serve Turkish coffee. People can get that at home.

 

About tea and coffee among Palestinians:

Historically, the people of Jerusalem are tea, not coffee drinkers. In the Galilee, they drink more coffee. The most popular tea in the Arab world is Lipton Yellow Label. I remember a commercial on the radio - "shai, shai, Lipton, Lipton" - from my childhood.

 

Owner's favorite food:

Mix of all starter salads which beautiful and has many tastes. It includes asparagus salad, roquette salad, seafood salad.

 

About the clientele:

About fifty percent are local and fifty percent are internationals from NGO's.

 

Future plans:

To travel to Sicily and bring back two grandmothers who can cook authentic Italian home cuisine.