São Paulo – A Lebanese woman who’s been living in Brazil for almost twenty years was responsible for bringing some Arab cuisine and flavors to Cuiabá, the capital of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state. About nine months ago, Nersin Chibli opened Café Chibli, located downtown, where many a local has tried coffee made Lebanese-style. The entrepreneur makes the beverage with powder from her country, without percolating it, just the way Arabs make it.
In Lebanon, besides being served non-percolated, coffee is drunk without sugar, Nesrin explains. “Many customers got interested in it, they want to check the flavor, which is a bit different,” she says, remarking that several Brazilian regulars have taken to it and now only have their coffee like this, non-percolated and sugar-free. The coffee powder is imported from the Arab country.
The cafeteria also serves sweet and savory Arab delicacies, including open sfihas, zaatar (a mix of spices), wrapped sfihas stuffed with potato and ground beef or curd, falafel patties, kafta beefcake, kibbeh, chipa biscuits, the sesame seed paste tahini, and shawarma, or stuffed, wrapped Pita bread. According to Nesrin, top-selling products include falafel, fried kibbeh and shawarma.
Even though Arab pastries and snacks are the cafeteria’s flagship products, Chibli also serves traditional products found in Brazilian establishments of this kind, like cheese bread, cakes and pies, coffee and milk, ice coffee, cappuccinos and more. Nesrin gets lots of Arab-descendant customers, but says most patrons are Brazilians who “love” Arab cuisine.
Chibli was born in the Bekaa Valley, a part of Lebanon that houses a large Brazilian community, and moved to Brazil after meeting her Lebanese-descendent husband during a trip to Lebanon. They were engaged for a year, married and then she moved to Cuiabá, Brazil with her husband.
In Brazil, Chibli, who’s now the mother of a ten-year-old daughter, was never just a housewife. She opened a clothing store, which later went out of business and a stationery store with her husband, before finally setting up the cafeteria. The latter was one of her dreams. “The people enjoy it, but my coffee still needs a lot of work,” she told ANBA over the phone. Nesrin was always into cuisine. Even though she has a team working for her, she takes care of the spice and batter herself.
She says that for some time, her cafeteria was drawn on a notebook. Nesrin made drawings of the place and wrote down her plans until she finally brought them to fruition. Now that her dream’s fulfilled, she has a bigger one: converting the place into a restaurant and opening a grocery store to sell Arab products for Cuiabá residents to be able to cook Arab dishes at home.
Café Chibli
Rua Antônio João, 170
Downtown – Cuiabá – Mato Grosso
Telephone: +55 (65) 3054 5016
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
