Chef Meedu Saad from Impala

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco and this week I speak with chef Meedu Saad, known for his work at Soho's Kiln and now he opened his debut restaurant in Parla, also in London, Soho. It was a pleasure to meet him at the restaurant.

0:36Midou Saad, what a pleasure to be here at your restaurant. First of all, first impressions is bigger than I thought. Tell us about the location. We're in Dean Street. I mean, to be in Soho is the place to be, right? Yeah, Dean Street, Soho.

0:50Meedu Saad:Yeah, an absolute dream for me. Obviously, cooking at Kiln for the past like eight years, eight and a bit years. Yeah, it was a no-brainer when we had the opportunity to take another site in Soho. We were really lucky to get this one on Dean Street, such an iconic road. It is iconic. Let's talk about Impala. I love the name. Can you tell us the reason of the name, please? Yeah, so Impala comes from the sort of Chevrolet Impala that we had when my dad owned and me and my cousins rode around in. and it's quite poignant because this restaurant's built on memories, the dishes, so it felt fitting for the name to be based around a memory that was fond of.

1:36You mentioned memories. I was reading that, is it true that the inspiration was a meal you ate in Egypt? I think, was it a friend's house or something like that?

1:46Meedu Saad:Yeah, there were a few different moments. One of them, the duck, for instance, that was probably what you're referring to, was a summer spent with a friend of my cousin's whose family owned a fruit farm, predominantly mangoes. And we spent that summer picking fruit. Every lunchtime was like this large sort of elaborate meal, like someone's wedding. But because they were on farmland, so it was all these like incredible like roasted birds, stuffed pigeons and duck roasted in buffalo butter. And in between that, like big piles of rice and fresh fruit from the orchard, for instance. And that was a core memory that we started with in building the menu here at Impala.

2:29Is Impala, in a way, I know you have Egyptian heritage, is it kind of Egypt meets North London, in a way?

2:37Meedu Saad:I think it's more, yes, myself being Egyptian, I think it's more of a North Africa meets North London, and also, and there in between. For instance, I spent a lot of time visiting cities in southern europe marseille being real like uh influence with those diasporas yeah incredible place food from you know from tunisia from algeria etc but that found its own sort of identity in and amongst the sort of cooking in the south of france so those dishes and they're true to where they are even though they're not like direct representation of tunisian cuisine there'll be like the Marseille version of it and I loved that and I felt like I grew up in North London and there were a lot there were lots of like moments like that with like the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities grilling in Haringey along Green Lanes etc so that has all fed into sort of the menu and the development here.

3:37It's a lot of charcoal grill right that's kind of the

3:40Meedu Saad:one of the main technique from impala right yeah the charcoal grill is a big sort of um focus quite unique here we all of our restaurants have fire cooking here it's um a lot more direct very very close to the coals again spent a lot of time traveling around cairo that grilling technique is very prevalent there and then also in tokyo we spent some time a friend of mine cooked over there it seemed like a an interesting choice but actually that was one of the places closest to that style of grilling where you have the yakitori and it's very very high heat close to the coals but you're constantly moving the product so that you don't have that singe or that bitterness and that's something i saw a lot in cairo when we went to do some r &d i was looking at the website of impala one thing that is really impressive you have the food you serve here but also where it comes from the the list of produce is really i know some restaurants do that but you do in such a you know you're very specific i love that yeah i it's easy to say it flippantly that like oh you know we're only as good as what we have ingredient wise but genuinely like um we're so lucky to work with the farms and the people you know i think that that's a core thing here is like yes the produce that's produced but also those people producing that produce are so near and dear to us years and years of relationship and working together to be able to like use that produce and use it well so yeah we hold them in very high regard they are like um they're basically members of our team you know like we we speak to them on a daily basis we receive their produce and the care that's been put into growing that or rearing those animals.

5:31Meedu Saad:We want to show the same care when it comes in through the door and then when it's cooked and put on the plate. So, yeah, we definitely hold them very, very high regard. Mito, the restaurant is very new, right? But it did connect with people. I hear it's getting booked up quite a lot. I mean, how do you feel? Yeah, I feel really touched by the reception, especially because this is such a personal project and obviously something was very nervous and still very nervous about ultimately you want people to come and have a really enjoyable time enjoy their lunch enjoy their dinner that's the key and then behind that there is a lot of yeah like i said this it's a really personal it's a personal story a personal project and i feel overwhelmed and overjoyed that it's been received so well final question a tricky one can you pick a dish a dish and a drink on a warm spring evening i would say a drink a long island iced tea i think it was a was a good move took a little bit convincing but it was a good move to put on the menu um but i also love the citron press day i think for spring it's lovely to be able to like concoct your own lemonade basically and um and get the balance just right for yourself so i love that and then um a dish i would have to put two together for it to eat well and i would say the call your chops grilled super close to the coals and then they're finished with the wild oregano a little bit of lemon juice and olive oil and then they're served on top of potatoes that have been essentially cooked similarly to a fondant where we cook them first in clarified a bernoisette and then once they have color we then fill it with chicken stock bay leaves and reduce that to to glaze the potatoes and it's just like a it's a dish that I never thought I'd put on the menu because it's there's nothing chefy about it whatsoever but I'm really proud that we did because I know and I've said this like I know if I saw it somewhere else I'd be really jealous that someone had that on their menu.

7:45Meedu Saad:I mean, it is lamb chops and potatoes, but I think it's a great plate of food. Thank you, Midu Saad, there. And make sure to book a table. The food is delicious indeed. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and the show was edited by Jack Dewars. Thank you for listening.