The Lighthouse Conversations with Hashem Montasser

Hashem meets up with Shereen Al-Mulla, soon-to-be Master Herbalist, and co-founder of Hikma Rituals, a homegrown brand of botanicals including oils, tinctures and dusts. Hashem and Shereen discuss the beginnings of her journey into herbalism by way of a rose infusion ritual, the desire to reclaim her Iraqi heritage, and the serendipitous meeting with Mahdiah El-Jed, her business partner and co-fou...

Hashem catches up with fellow Harvard alumnus and EFG Hermes Pax Americana boot buddy Rami Sarafa, who recently launched Cordoba Advisory Partners, a private wealth management firm. Rami divulges key tips on how to build a strong investment portfolio and demystifies the arcane nature of finance. He is of the view that a key ingredient to successful investing is grasping relational psychology, and...

In this week’s episode we are transported to Cairo via Mexico City. Hashem chats with Mohamed Elshahed, curator, architectural historian and author of Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide. Hashem and Mohamed expand on how Cairo, the architectural compendium of 220 buildings and sites, was put together. They also uncover the challenges and surprises Mohamed and his students encountered during t...

Hashem catches up with Sunny Rahbar, co-founder of legendary Dubai-based art gallery The Third Line, which is celebrating its 18th year. Our episode quickly morphed into a gem of oral history as Sunny shared her story of growing in and around Dubai’s rapidly changing cultural landscape and contributing to the seismic shifts that propelled the evolution of Dubai’s art scene back in 2005. Hashem and...

Hashem catches up with Ayman Baky, fellow Cairene and Founder of Baky Hospitality. Baky Hospitality is the group behind the award winning restaurants Sachi and Kazoku, as well as Reif Kushiyaki (Cairo) which have reshaped the dining scene in Egypt. Successful, gritty and what many would call “Type A personality,” Ayman is no stranger to risks and learning from mistakes. In our interview, he shares...

All good things come to an end and so too did 2022.  As is our podcast tradition, we recorded our year in review on Hashem’s birthday with the usual balloons and confetti (yeah right). And with birthdays come reflections on the past and predictions of the future. This includes our podcast which is now in its fourth year.  Hashem, a self appointed “well-traveled gourmand” and our producer Chirag ch...

Thank you for checking out The Lighthouse Conversations, a podcast featuring entrepreneurs & tastemakers from the world of arts, culture, tech and food. Our goal with the show is to showcase and celebrate the journey of pioneers in and around the Arab world—their highs and lows so to speak—and how they got to where they did. We’re excited to bring you shows full of interesting guests, stimulat...

In this throwback episode from April 2022: Our conversation with Stasha Toncev, founder of Dubai’s award-winning Balkan bistro, 21 Grams . Hailed in the media, Stasha’s restaurant was praised as “charming” and “brain melting” by The Financial Times supplement,  How To Spend It ,  and Bill Addison , the  Los Angeles Times ’ celebrated food critic. In a heart-to-heart with Hashem, Stasha opened up a...

In this throwback episode from June 2022: Hashem catches up with Mohamad Orfali, TV celebrity chef extraordinaire, restaurateur and co-founder of the award winning Orfali Bros restaurant in Dubai. When a chance email to Fatafeat founder Youssef El Deeb led to the publication of Orfali’s cookbook and subsequent blockbuster cooking TV shows, a new TV celebrity chef was born. Orfali discusses the del...

Our guest this week is Brendan McGetrick, internationally renowned writer, curator, and the creative director of Dubai’s Museum of the Future. Hashem and Brendan chat about how his early days in journalism with renowned architect Rem Koolhaas kick started a long standing interest in design and culture. They also delve into the philosophy of 1960s psychedelic culture, what technology means to our c...

Founded in 2000, Bokja had its first big break in New York City’s ABC Carpet & Home with an acquisition of four pieces by Hollywood star Kate Hudson. What followed was a cascade of recognition and accolades by the likes of the FT’s How To Spend It and stars like Madonna, Julia Roberts and designer Christian Louboutin. The Bokja duo offers us an insider look into the intricacies of their design...

We caught up with Ashraf Hebela in a multi-faceted episode discussing cultural hybridity, market declines, serial founders and more. Ashraf heads Startup Banking, plus Analytics & Sales Ops at one of the largest banks of the United States, Silicon Valley Bank. He shares his views on the importance of building long-term relationships with founders and not just the companies they represent. Hash...

Part two of our two-episode series. Fadi Ghandour co-founded Aramex in 1982 fresh out of studying Political Science in college, an education to which he attributes much of his dialectic thinking. It took tenacity and hard work, but Fadi says that plunging into the complexities of starting a logistics company in the Middle East from the bottom up also required a degree of experimentation and, yes,...

Part one of our two-episode series. Fadi Ghandour co-founded Aramex in 1982 fresh out of studying Political Science in college, an education to which he attributes much of his dialectic thinking. It took tenacity and hard work, but Fadi says that plunging into the complexities of starting a logistics company in the Middle East from the bottom up also required a degree of experimentation and, yes,...

In this throwback episode from 2020: Our guest, Youssef El Deeb, Is the founder of Fatafeat, the first Arab TV company that was acquired by a global media conglomerate, Discovery. In a time when Middle East television was airing cooking shows as “fillers" for grandmothers at home, Youssef El Deeb had the foresight to drum up the likes of Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson to the prime time. And foste...

In this throwback episode from 2020, we're joined by serial entrepreneur Mohamad Ballout, founder of Dubai-based foodtech pioneer Kitopi, currently the world's leading managed cloud kitchen platform. Founded in January 2018, Kitopi has quickly expanded to five countries, having added Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UK & the US to its roster after raising a successful $60 million Series B in funding...

This week, Hashem invited Ahmad Al Marri, Founder of Dubai-based ice cream brand Canvas Gelato to the hot seat. Launched in 2017, Canvas Gelato’s raison d'être is to produce ice cream that is made exclusively with “real” ingredients and delivered at negative 70 degrees celsius. Ahmad’s ice cream delivery concept proved successful and was soon supplied to major outlets including local chocolate mak...

This week Hashem and guest host Samantha Wood aka FooDiva catch up with Issam Kazim, CEO of DTCM (Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing). “Not your typical government department,” as Issam puts it, DTCM catapulted the Emirate of Dubai from the early pandemic days through to the other side of lockdown with flying colors—all with stellar planning and marketing campaigns that involved...

Hashem catches up with Mohamad Orfali, TV celebrity chef extraordinaire, restaurateur and co-founder of the award winning Orfali Bros restaurant in Dubai. When a chance email to Fatafeat founder Youssef El Deeb led to the publication of Orfali’s cookbook and subsequent blockbuster cooking TV shows, a new TV celebrity chef was born. Orfali discusses the delicate balancing act of being in front of a...

In this week’s episode we connect with Mounir Nakhla, CEO and Co-Founder of Egypt’s leading FinTech start-up ‘Halan’ (translated to: “ right now ”) which focuses on creating financial solutions for the unbanked and the under banked. Mounir shares snippets of his journey since 2017 when he was approached by Indonesian tech unicorn Gojek, then being struck by the pandemic in 2020 and what it meant f...

This week, we reunite with a previous guest; author and friend of The Lighthouse, Nadia Wassef. Since our first episode with Nadia, her well received debut memoir  Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller has been published in several languages and Nadia is now preparing for her second narrative structure—but in a faster paced, post-lockdown world. Recorded in the Library Bar at The Lighthouse Abu Dhabi,...

We are joined this week by multidisciplinary Jordanian designer Anoud Alzaben who we first met at The Lighthouse when she set the stage for a fantastical nature-cum-charcuterie pop-up for Beirut’s The Silly Spoon . After launching her professional career in architecture, Anoud traded her 9 to 5 desk job with motherhood and a pivot to holistic design approaches like tablescapes and movement & m...

This week we sit with Stasha Toncev, founder of Dubai’s award-winning Balkan bistro, 21 Grams . Hailed in the media, Stasha’s restaurant was praised as “charming” and “brain melting” by The Financial Times supplement,  How To Spend It ,  and Bill Addison , the  Los Angeles Times ’ celebrated food critic. In a heart-to-heart with Hashem, Stasha opened up about her childhood in Socialist Yugoslavia;...

The Michelin Guides recently announced the launch of a new Dubai guide (the first Michelin Guide in the Middle East) in June 2022. Hashem and his co-host Samantha Wood aka FooDiva sit down with Gwendal Poullennec, the Guides’ International Director. Over coffee and Shakshouka, Hashem and Samantha ask a tight-lipped Poullennec their most pressing questions to contextualize and debunk some of the mo...

To mark the occasion of the Middle East's recent inclusion in  The World’s 50 Best Restaurants  awards, we catch up with award-winning food critic Samantha Wood aka FooDiva, and Claudia de Brito, the awards’ Gulf Academy Chair. We take a deep dive into the awards; how the Awards were started, how the winners are selected and who sits on the voting committee. Claudia and Samantha share their views...