It is rare nowadays, to walk into a restaurant and not be greeted by the physical presence of a large pedestal and an iPad with a reservation system on it. Unless you are dining at a mom-and-pop shop, you are certainly expected to follow along and participate in the choreography of a tightly managed dining room. A space that desires to disrupt that type of dining experience lets the menu take center stage. Time passes faster than usual, with the anticipation of each course. Your experience isn’t dependent on the interior design, the service, the music, or any element that doesn’t involve cooking – it only depends on whether your food tastes good or not. In the social media age, this type of interference exists only in a small amount of restaurants.

Nestled in the 11th arrondissement with the likes of some of Paris’s most famous wine bars, Mokonuts exists in a time, and a pace, of its own. Here, there’s only two people driving the boat; Omar and Moko, who are also the owners of the restaurant and its offshoots, Mokochaya and Locomal. When you arrive, you’re greeted by Moko herself. That’s if she is not busy running the food to the tables or making dessert in the kitchen. Within a minute, you find yourself sitting down at a table, perusing over the changing menu and acclimating to the sounds of the kitchen, where Omar is always cooking. There’s only one other cook, Mariam, and they have very little conversation amongst each other. They seem to all operate on an unspoken rhythm, that you, as the diner, find yourself falling into once you start tasting the food.

Now, it’s been over a decade of helming this ship together, and the two chefs have much to share about the path they carved to create one of Paris’ most beloved restaurants.  

Both of you grew up in your own diasporas, in countries that have problematic histories particularly with people of your heritage. How was that experience growing up, and how did it shape your relationship to Lebanese and Japanese food? 

Omar: I was born in Lebanon, and then came to Paris when I was one year old in 1975. Right after the Civil War started. So we basically came to France, initially on holiday. What was supposed to be just a summer, ended up being a lifetime, because we couldn't go back. But I grew up in a very Lebanese family, my parents always spoke to me in Arabic at home. We only ate Middle Eastern food at home, so our Lebanese culture was always very present. Being Lebanese in Paris was always a struggle of trying to retain the culture and the heritage from my parents' perspective, and my siblings and I moving away from it. I was trying so hard to be French when I was a teenager. I didn't want my parents to come and pick me up from school, because I was afraid that they would speak to me in Arabic. Interestingly, it's only after I went to college in the U.S. that I wanted to get closer to my Lebanese roots and relearn how to speak Arabic. I had many international students as friends, as it was very hard for me to integrate into American culture. I relearned my roots, my language, my heritage through them. I'm Muslim, but religion was never something that was imposed on me as a kid, even though my dad was sort of religious. 

The way I found my way back to Lebanese food is that eventually, I learned how to cook through what I knew best, which was Lebanese cuisine. I thought I knew how to cook it, but I knew how to eat it. I didn't know how to prepare it. My first introduction to cooking was just making the things that I had seen my dad do. When I went into cooking professionally, I went to the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. I'd say there are maybe elements of Lebanese cuisine in what I do now, but it's very minimal. I say my food now is very much French in technique and very much Mediterranean in character. 

Moko: I guess we have a little bit different kind of life experiences, because although I was still born in Japan, we moved to the Bay Area when I was 6 months old. After about five years, we moved back to Japan for a good 14 years, before relocating to the East Coast. For me, Japanese food was always there, but because our family moved around so much, we never felt like our food was “it”. It was never French food or American food or Japanese food, maybe there was a Japanese base to it. When we were in San Francisco, we were a Japanese family amongst all the Americans. When we went back to Japan after 5 years of being in the U.S., we were this weird family that did Christmas and ate bread in the morning. We were more westernized in a way after spending time in America, not necessarily because my parents assimilated, but just because they were more into adding more things in their cultural basket. My mom would take Chinese food lessons in San Francisco, so we ate a lot of different kinds of Americanized Chinese food with my mom's touch. I would say I grew up eating food that has no nationalities. After we moved to the U.S. for the second time, that's when I started appreciating Japanese food more. I would get home and all I wanted to eat was Japanese food, which was never the case when I was a kid. I would ask my mom to make me lasagna or Chinese food or a burger; but then in New York, in my little apartment, all I wanted to cook was Japanese food. When we moved to London, although I was an attorney, I was just literally going through these Kaiseki books whenever I had time and I was cooking the most intricate Japanese meals, because somehow those were the things that I missed.

You met each other while living in New York and you both enjoyed going out to restaurants to try new dishes and cuisines together, which led to Omar making the decision to go to culinary school. How did the multicultural fabric of New York shape that decision?

Moko: I think it did help in a sense that we were exposed to so many different things. We were there at a time when the food scene was flourishing. All these new chefs were becoming popular, Per Se had just opened. 

Omar: For me particularly, it exposed me to so many different foods, cuisines and spices, that definitely shaped the way I am now. I’ve always been passionate about “ethnic” food.

Moko: In my case, I caught the bug in Europe, but it was New York that opened my eyes to the fact that this is what I really want to do. We connected mostly through food and doing things that we thought we had in common. We were like, well, maybe we can get along, we can do something with this. 

Omar: Like Moko said, there was something about the New York dining scene in the early 2000s, that was just really exciting and superb. The heydays of Per Se, Bouley, Gramercy Tavern… It was just fun. We loved going out and we loved the food scene. It's those experiences that really made us think later on, that this is really what we want to do. 

When we came back to France after we got married, although France was my home base, I had to learn how to integrate all over again. I felt like a total foreigner in this country. I knew the language, I had a residency, but everything, to me, was foreign.

Moko: And I think moving countries and changing cultures is one thing, but going into cooking, going into this industry in another country, that's another type of integration. Especially for women, 15-18 years ago, the way restaurant culture was so toxic. It was heavily based on the French brigade system, which is not welcoming for women. At first, I was working in a very Japanese kitchen, which killed me. 

Omar: You were supposed to be a certain Japanese person, which you are not. So the French were completely lost. They were like, she's not really Japanese. She's not a cook. She talks, she speaks English, and she asks questions. which you're not supposed to do in the French kitchens at all.