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CULTURE

The history behind Hanna Mitri’s delicious ice cream

This Monday, L’Orient-Le Jour explored the Hanna Mitri ice cream maker, founded in 1948 in Achrafieh. This episode recounts the story of this place, why it is still there to date and how it has become a part of the Lebanese collective memory.

The history behind Hanna Mitri’s delicious ice cream

Hanna Mitri's ice cream. (Credit: Michele Aoun)

For 76 years now, a small crowd lined up at the threshold of Hanna Mitri’s pastry shop every season, often spilling out onto the sidewalk in a disciplined queue.

Beirut has changed in many ways. Hanna Mitri passed away in 2012. In the autumn of 2020, his son Mitri Hanna Moussa was forced to move the family patisserie to a new location. The first was swept away by the Aug. 4, 2020, explosion. Still, the small crowd gathers almost daily, especially on Easter and sunny days, at the door of Hanna Mitri’s new location on Saydeh Street.

This new address may not have the same soul as the previous one, but it houses the same recipe secrets, the same textures and flavors, the same maamoul and the same ice creams and sorbets stacked in wafer-flavored cones. In short, the same tastes are engraved in our memories and are a landmark amid everything that no longer exists.

The ever-present memory of Hanna Mitri Moussa. (Credit: Michele Aoun)

A man of taste

In the late 1930s, Hanna Mitri Moussa, only nine years old at the time, worked in the kitchen of the Saab patisserie, a well-known brand of the time. In the Achrafieh neighborhood, he was known as “Hanna, ibn Mitri, ”so much so that, over time, he became the “Hanna Mitri” who needs no introduction today.

“From an early age, my father was a hard worker who believed in the importance of hard work and success. He never allowed himself a day off, until his sister’s wedding, when he took time off from the patisserie. His boss didn’t appreciate it, and my father ended up leaving because he always had a lot of pride. He was 20 at the time. He had received an indemnity and initially worked from his kitchen,” said Mitri Moussa, Hanna’s son.

“Then he had the idea of using his sum to open a patisserie by renting the premises where we used to be until 2020. The owner of the building, who knew him well and appreciated his work, even facilitated the payments, and that’s how he started and how his customers followed him,” he continued.

For the next 65 years, Hanna Mitri made everything, all by himself, in this patisserie. He offered date maamouls, nammoura, mchabbak and mhallabieh, for which the locals flocked, enchanted by the sweet aromas wafting from Hanna Mitri’s kitchens.

“He was a man of taste. He was a true pastry chef who taught himself everything. He invented his recipes and redid them over and over, looking for the slightest false note, until he had exactly what he wanted. He worked alone, and only he had the secret to his recipes,” said his son.

Mitri Hanna has taken up his father's torch and recipes. (Credit: Michele Aoun)

But the real trademark of the establishment, the main component of the recipe for its 75-year-old success, are the ice creams and sorbets that the shop makes from spring onwards. “He was probably the first ice cream maker in Lebanon to invent a natural oriental ice cream without colorants, using only fresh produce. Lemon, rose, apricot with pine nuts, milk, strawberry, crunchy and almond flavors, depending on the season,” Mitri said.

Today, we remember Hanna Mitri in his white apron, hunched over his fridge, filling cones for the children and adults passing by, who squinted with delight at every bite. Before Easter, on his eternal green plastic chair, Hanna and his wife perfected the stuffing and dough for the thousands of maamouls produced by the establishment every year, even during the war years. That was “when he distributed the maamouls in the shelters,” said Mitri.

He has an unpredictable temperament, grumpy at times.“He didn’t talk much. He had no time for jokes. All he wanted to do was work and ensure the quality never dropped. But above all, he loved his work. He relished perfectionism. Every day, I’d watch him perfecting his recipes, sometimes throwing everything away and starting again, and it was like watching a jeweler cut his stone. He worked with his hands, and his mouth and taste buds followed,” Mitri added.

Mitri continued, “He had zero tolerance for customers who came to waste time. … to suppliers who offered him products not to his liking, he’d throw the merchandise in their face. His policy was one of zero compromise. He could do it because he applied it to himself, before anyone else. And that’s why he established himself over time and with impeccable consistency.”

Since he was 14, the son spent all his free time in his father’s shadow. “I started carrying equipment, filling ice cream cones, then gradually assisting him in the kitchen. He’d always say: ‘I only answer my son Mitri’s questions because the day someone has to take over after me, it’ll be him, and only him,’” said Mitri with a lump in his throat.

“He continued to come to the store until the end. One day during the last year before he left us, I saw him having trouble with his hands. I offered to help him and rolled up my sleeves to handle the dough. He watched me for 15, then 30 minutes, then sat down. That’s when I understood that I had to continue,” Mitri added.

When his father died the following year, Mitri resigned from the bank where he worked to devote himself to the family business which had been bequeathed to him. “I didn’t tell anyone. It was a leap into the void but I had to do it; that’s what my father wanted. It was a huge responsibility. I inherited an establishment that is part of our Lebanese culinary heritage. At the same time, it was a mission, even a duty, of ensuring the continuity of this precious thing that my father created.”

Mitri recounted the first Easter celebration, in 2012, when he had to make his maamouls alone for the first time. That summer, he had to make the ice cream.

“While preparing all this, I had the impression of feeling my father’s hand guiding the movements of mine. His voice was in my ear telling me it’s not the quantities that matter, because the climate, the environment, the oven and the ingredients change. A great pastry chef is, according to him, one who knows how to juggle these variables and still manage to maintain the same taste of a dessert or an ice cream,” he said.

The day after Aug. 4, 2020, the small pastry shop on Mar Mitr Street had been swept away by the ineffable explosion. Everyone thought of Hanna Mitri. What would happen to the ice creams, maamouls and energy of this culinary heritage?

“My father, before his death, insisted that we buy premises. He wanted security. We therefore acquired premises on Saydeh Street. When I applied for a loan to the bank, the director, whom I did not know was our customer, accepted without even looking at it.”

“Why do I continue? Simply so that you all continue to return to Beirut to eat our ice cream,” said Mitri.

This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Joelle El Khoury.

For 76 years now, a small crowd lined up at the threshold of Hanna Mitri’s pastry shop every season, often spilling out onto the sidewalk in a disciplined queue. Beirut has changed in many ways. Hanna Mitri passed away in 2012. In the autumn of 2020, his son Mitri Hanna Moussa was forced to move the family patisserie to a new location. The first was swept away by the Aug. 4, 2020, explosion....