Out of the window of
my hotel room in Beirut (in the excellent Le Gray, of which more later) the
jumble of history is everywhere. Concrete blocks from the infamous Green Line which
used to divide the city are scattered among fallen Roman columns. A ruined
Ottoman fort and an exquisite Maronite chapel are right outside. On the skyline
mosques and churches (there are around eighteen official religions in Lebanon)
frame the skeleton of the old Holiday Inn, favourite target for anyone with a
rocket launcher during the civil war.
When friends knew I
was going to Beirut, the reaction was split between those who see it as the most
thrilling place to be right now, the next big thing; and those who haven’t got
past seeing it as a war zone where well-meaning travellers end up chained to
radiators. Both have a point; style pundits are noisily buying up apartments
and rightly singing the praises of Lebanese musicians and designers while Hezbollah
and Israeli jets still fight it out around them. The Green Line is rapidly
being built over as the shiny new Downtown district, and it’s often hard to
tell which is a shelled building and which is a construction site.
People I spoke to are
astonishingly matter of fact about Lebanon’s recent past, telling stories of
homes and lives destroyed; yet at the same time they are insistent that the world
should look at Beirut not through the eyes of P J O’Rourke (it featured in his
book Holidays in Hell) but as a hopeful, optimistic and thriving place that is
fast reinventing itself. The tiny Maronite chapel is just in front of the huge
new Blue Mosque, there’s a perfectly-restored Orthodox church next to a
Catholic cathedral. Perhaps surprisingly given recent tensions, the synagogue
is being restored too. And all these are within yards of each other, every one
getting the same attention from the stonemasons and painters, and all in
streets where you might find a Ferrari dealer next to a funky bar or a sharp
designer next to a flat bread stall.
There’s some serious
money coming into Beirut these days. Sleek steel and glass buildings are rising
around Downtown, some people have enough money to risk their Porsches among the
beaten-up Mercedes taxis that still veer honking across the streets (the horn
being preferred to wing mirrors), hoardings around building sites along the
Corniche proudly trumpet the return of Beirut’s glamorous sixties heyday with
pictures of carefree film stars and Riva speedboats.
Hotelier Gordon
Campbell Gray’s successes with One Aldwych in London and Carlisle Bay in
Antigua suggest he knows an opportunity when he sees one. So it’s worth noting
that he’s just opened Le Gray as one of Beirut’s newest and chicest hotels.
Gray (fairly chic himself in tan-enhancing white shirt and ripped jeans) talks
theory about the ‘kindness industry’ and its positive effects for Beirut and
the Lebanon, though he’s far from blind to the risks. We sat in the comfortable
Cigar Bar before dinner watched the smart young Lebanese mixing among the
international travellers – they aren’t defined by the conflicts of the past.
Next day on the
waterfront we met one of them, Kamal Mouzawak, who calls his brand of culinary entrepreneurialism
‘gastroeconomics’ (motto, make food not war). Believing that in a world of
increasing global sameness peoples and cultures are defined most closely by
their culinary heritage, he encourages ‘real’ farmers markets where the actual
producers (rather than resellers) come in from the countryside with fresh
vegetables, preserves, fruits and natural remedies. He has also opened the
wonderful Tawlet café where each day a different cook will compose a menu of
perfect Lebanese food from fresh local ingredients in airy surroundings of
white tiles, wooden shelves, clever recycled lighting and fresh flowers. It’s
far beyond the familiar babbaganoush and shawarma street food – from the daunting
raw liver and lamb (eaten with a pinch of salt and paprika) through to frike
and delicious ricotta, coal-tasting Armenian basterma and perfect 961 beer.
A stroll past the
beach clubs of the Corniche or an evening in the bars and restaurants of Gemmayze
reveals more and more people creating the buzz and excitement of a new Beirut.
Coffee shops and ice cream parlours, sports bars and music venues seem to be
opening daily among the elegant Parisian-style buildings. And if you’re brave
enough to tackle the crazy driving on the roads towards Damascus and the Bekaa
Valley, you can find more evidence of people building a new economy from the
ruins of the old.
Sami and Ramzi Ghosn’s
El Massaya winery is a good example. Deep in Hizbollah territory (you can tell
by the yellow and black flags flying by the roadblocks) a drive down a couple
of dusty tracks past industrial units and abandoned buildings takes you into a
lavender-scented vineyard surrounded by olive trees and rustling poplars. The
brothers set themselves the task of rivalling better-known Lebanese wineries
like Chateau Musar, starting from scratch in 1998. With some help from
well-known French wine-makers and undaunted by conflict, they’ve done it – you
can find their excellent wines at merchants like Berry Brothers and on
exclusive wine lists at Simpson’s or the Tate.
The brothers’ shady
garden and little restaurant is a perfect place to enjoy a sunny afternoon,
especially if you’ve been touring the extraordinary ruins at Baalbek on the
way. The ancient city of Heliopolis is one of the best-preserved and most
important ancient sites of the region, and despite earthquakes and almost two
millennia of looting is still breathtaking. The ‘small temple’ is bigger than
the Parthenon and has exquisite carvings still in amazing condition while the
six columns still standing of the vast temple of Jupiter are the tallest ever
discovered. Even on a Sunday morning the only other visitors were a group of
women, their black hijabs fluttering like crow wings against the vast white
stones.
We took a longer route
back to the city, avoiding the swerving trucks and maniacal motorcyclists of
the main road, passing over the mountains (where Beirutis come to ski in
winter) through pines and cedars. One side-effect of the country’s
entrepreneurialism is that there’s a lot of unplanned and often unfinished
building projects dotted randomly across the hills, while driving into the city
takes you through some areas where the benefits of a restarted economy have yet
to be felt – cheap shops, broken pavements and unfixed buildings. But despite
vintage US army tanks and well-armed soldiers being part of the street
furniture in some areas, there’s nowhere that feels unsafe.
Nevertheless, it’s a
pleasure to be back in the quietly sophisticated comfort of the Le Gray to
reflect on the Beirut experience – maybe with a visit to the spa or over dinner
in one of the fine restaurants. The hotel is an expression of confidence in the
future, just like El Massaya, the glossy shops of Downtown, the bars of
Gemmayze and the Souk el Tayyeb farmer’s market. Leave your preconceptions at
home, and you’ll find Beirut to be one of the most exciting and welcoming
cities on earth.
