The Lighthouse Conversations with Hashem Montasser

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...

We sat with Rania Masri El Khatib, Founder of the RMK Collective, a transformation and experience design advisory. Rania launched her career in retail with the global fashion brand Azadea before joining Chalhoub Group and spearheading the iconic Level Shoe District in Dubai Mall ten years ago. Rania’s keen insight on what makes consumers “tick” allowed her to design customer-centric experiences an...

This week we caught up with Cyril Zammit, design advisor and former director of the renowned fair for collectible design, Design Days Dubai, which ran from 2012-2017. Hashem and Cyril unpack a decade in design starting at a time when the local design scene was nascent before, Dubai cemented itself as a regional hub. They also discuss how the GCC’s design landscape–slowly but surely–matured and how...

This week we met up with Hani AlMalki aka Bedouinfoodie, Dubai-based restaurant reviewer extraordinaire and food history buff. Hani shares snippets from his multicultural upbringing in the historic port city of Jeddah and his early experiences with Michelin-starred cuisine during business meetings between his parents and master perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain in Paris. Hashem and Hani also discuss the...

And just like that, The Lighthouse turns five! This year might feel to some like “2020, Part Three” but to us it feels like a birthday with the addition of fraternal twins. We’re marking the start of a new era with two new openings in Abu Dhabi and The Palm so it feels good to be turning five. The Lighthouse Conversations podcast has similarly evolved over the years as we doubled down on an interv...

On this week’s episode, Hashem caught up with Amir Allam, a fellow Egyptian and graduate of the infamous DEO, the German school in Cairo. Amir Allam is the Founder of Elmenus, an F&B marketplace boasting digital menus & delivery for over 6000 restaurants across Egypt. Founded just days shy of the Egyptian revolution back in 2011, Elmenus is now—10 years on—Egypt’s biggest food discovery an...

As fellow Egyptians and graduates of Harvard College in the 90s, Hashem and Ramy Adeeb initially shared a similar path that led them from Cairo to Cambridge, Massachusetts. We caught up with Ramy this week via Zoom in Silicon Valley to follow his journey from young computer programmer writing software at age 12 to his pivot from startup to venture capital and back again. During the height of the E...

Hashem is joined this week— via Zoom call from Milan— by David & Nicolas , the Milan/Beirut-based design duo whose retro-futurist work is featured in the acclaimed Nilufar Gallery and Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Hashem and David/Nicolas discuss their fixation on time as a “marker” and how it affects their designs; the hybridity of their identities; the aesthetic influences of growing up in a...

In today’s episode, Hashem caught up with Feras Jalbout, founder of fintech app Baraka. A UAE-based platform, Baraka’s motto is empowering the investor and encouraging broader financial literacy among millennials and Gen Z’s in the Middle East. Hashem and Feras also discussed his pivot from private wealth management to launching Baraka, the future of crypto currencies, and Feras’ dress code tip fo...

Welcome back, listeners! In our first episode post-summer, host Hashem Montasser caught up with Hattem Mattar, founder of The Mattar Farm for specialty artisanal smoked meat, brisket and third culture barbecues. Hashem and Hattem chatted about the hybridity of his upbringing; life as a father of two young children; and what finally pushed him to turn The Mattar Farm from side gig to main gig. Hash...

This week we dive into the world of venture capital and startup investing as Hashem catches up with Khaled Talhouni, Founder and Managing Director of Nuwa Capital, a Dubai/Riyadh-based investment platform he set up with partners Stephanie Nour Prince and Sarah Abu Risheh. Hashem and Khaled discuss his journey in the early days of venture investing in Dubai and why he prefers investing in a startup...

This week we reunited with one of our favorite podcast guests from 2020, Fatafeat founder and overall renaissance man, Youssef El Deeb. Having met last summer just as The Lighthouse reopened post-lockdown, Hashem and Youssef formed a bond over chocolate cake, books and a shared nostalgia for Egypt’s ancien regime. In this episode, the tables were turned with Youssef playing host and Hashem as the...

This week Hashem caught up with Sandy El Hayek, the newly minted General Manager of Dubai’s Time Out Market which launched in April in collaboration with Dubai mega developer Emaar. A veteran of Dubai’s F&B scene, Hashem and Sandy talked about her childhood as the daughter of Lebanese immigrants in Halmstad, Sweden, how her family dynamics influenced her passion for work (and good food), and t...

In today’s episode, host Hashem Montasser, a collector of Middle East art, catches up with multi-disciplinary and award-winning Egyptian artist Maha Maamoun. Maha expands on how her series “Domestic Tourism” and “Cairoscapes” came about and shares the fascinating stories behind the composited photographs. Hashem and Maha discuss the importance of displaying art to a broader audience within public...

In our first episode since Ramadan break, Hashem is joined by Manal Ataya who, as the Director General of Sharjah Museum Authority, sits at the helm of 16 museums documenting and consolidating the cultural heritage of the region. They discuss the “inner workings” of a museum director and why Manal finds curiosity and hunger for knowledge so essential to success in her field. They also talk about t...

On this week’s episode we caught up with friend of The Lighthouse, furniture and product designer Nada Debs. Coming from a lineage of Lebanese textile traders who settled in Japan at the turn of the century, Nada grew up with a sense of dissonance as one of the few Arabs/Muslims in Kobe. She chronicled her journey from booming 1980s Japan to Civil War Lebanon to Rhode Island and how each part of t...

Grab a pen and notebook because this episode is brimming with life learnings! Samantha Wood AKA FooDiva, inimitable queen of Dubai’s restaurant review scene takes us along her transition from corporate hotel PR to solopreneur and becoming one of Dubai’s most sought after food writers. We chatted about Samantha’s restaurant review process from start to finish, the two most important skills one must...

This week we caught up with gallerist Isabelle van den Eynde, founder of the eponymous Gallery IVDE, one of Dubai’s most established and celebrated contemporary art spaces. Isabelle shared snippets of her journey through the local art scene and how the late artist Hassan Sharif’s artistic methods still affect her everyday life. We also chatted about the ebb and flow of the art world throughout the...

This week we caught up with our d3 neighbor Samer Hamadeh to doubleclick on his pivot from nightlife impresario as founder of Stereo Arcade--a Dubai staple--to F&B as owner/operator of Akiba Dori, a licensed Japanese street food restaurant. Samer shared some insights he gained since launching his first venture in 2009, from how to raise capital for new projects to scaling a business beyond one...

This week we’re joined remotely by Nadia Wassef who in 2002 co-founded Cairo’s popular Diwan bookstore with her sister, Hind Wassef and their friend Nihal. Now, with three Masters degrees in her pocket and a separation from Diwan, Nadia is embarking on the arduous journey of writing her first book and shares snippets from her routine and experience thus far; what is the best time of day to write?...

Is there a recipe for building a loyal following? Helen Farmer’s work combines effective storytelling and just enough vulnerability to resonate with her audience of radio listeners and tens of thousands of Instagram followers. As one of Dubai’s most popular radio hosts and author of “The Mothership” blog, Helen amassed an audience who both relate and aspire to her “mompreneur” experience and defer...

Feels good saying it’s behind us, doesn’t it? What started as a normal year filled with fresh resolutions and new aspirations slowly took a strange turn into an unknown trajectory. When we concluded our [live podcast session with HE Zaki Nusseibeh late in February 2020, we didn’t know that weeks later we would close shop to prepare for quarantine. But we were determined to keep The Lighthouse Conv...

We caught up with Tariq Khayyat, one of the leading architects in the region, and a long time guest favorite of our restaurant in d3. Khayyat is the founder of a bespoke architecture firm, TKDP, in Dubai and leads grand scale projects including Shenzhen Luohu in China. But before this, Tariq Khayyat spent 14 years working with the late Zaha Hadid and described what it was like meeting the iconocla...

This week we caught up with Michelin Star Chef Daniel Boulud on location at his newly launched Brasserie Boulud at the Sofitel Obelisk in Dubai. Chef Daniel is heralded as one of the world’s top chefs and has many accolades under his belt including a James Beard Award. He is the author of several books, and possesses a keen business acumen with a portfolio spanning food tech investments and charit...

How do you go from working in advertising, to waking up with a gazillion Instagram notifications of J.LO wearing your mustard yellow couture gown to her movie premiere? In this week's episode, Hashem sits with fellow Egyptian, designer Yasmine Yeya, to discuss what entrepreneurship means to her...and their mutual love of Egyptian fattah! Yasmine shares stories from her beginnings; how she launched...