“Food closes the space between you and me,” says chef Fayha Sakkan. “You taste something I cook, and you like it. You say ‘This is amazing! What is this in it?’ And we start a conversation. The food becomes a bridge from my culture to yours.”
Sakkan, a Syrian immigrant, builds just these kinds of bridges at Global Café in Memphis, Tennessee, an international food hall that’s helping immigrant and refugee food entrepreneurs make a living and share their culinary cultures, one empanada and spoonful of tabbouleh at a time. There, she cooks dishes from her native country alongside other chefs such as Maria Bracho, a refugee who fled political unrest in Venezuela in 2014. “Every bite opens a window to a wider world,” says Sabine Langer, the owner of Global Café.
