Burning the tie: Fady Abounaoum’s second act

“I didn’t want to finish my career wearing a tie and sitting on a desk”. With an M.A. in Energy Environment Science and Technology from the Johns Hopkins University SAIS, Fady Abounaoum was Managing Director with Nestlé Dubai, reporting to Switzerland. He left that lucrative career behind in 2015.

“I reached a point in 2013 where I had to become entrepreneurial. It took me two years to figure out what that looked like. When I got a smile on my face and my heart started beating fast, I resigned”, admits Fady. He loves Italian food and Italy, having lived there for a long time, so he decided to venture into the restaurant business. And he yearned to come back home to Lebanon.

Captain of his ship

When he took that decision, he came to a daunting realization: “You’re alone in life and you need to make it”, says Fady. He worked sixteen hours a day, waking up and questioning his decision. Nonetheless, he kept going.

His venture into the culinary arts began in Italy, in Gambero Rosso, the school where he studied for three months. Then an additional three in a culinary experience, after which he got a certification from Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, where he learnt in a week how to make the real Neapolitan Pizza. He questioned what he was doing there daily. When the Italians found out he had just left Dubai, they started asking him left and right about the country being fascinated by it.

In Italy, he was in a safe zone where mistakes were allowed. “You can make a pizza that’s not round but square”, says Fady. The challenge was to make a real Neapolitan pizza which he failed at. He nailed the fried pizza, the typical Italian pizza. “How will I come back to Lebanon and bake this with everyone being so health-conscious?”

Courage pays off

With his fair share of doubts, he opened his restaurant in September 2015, a small location in Gemmayzeh, Lebanon. When asked if he felt relief from stress, he responded with: “I’m still under it”. In this industry, every day brings new hurdles and before making the first pizza of the day, his heart still beats out of fear.

A few weeks in, the restaurant exceeded his expectations. It fit 30 people, and he had 100 coming in every day. Men would tell him: “you’re an example to us. You made a decision over 95% of men wouldn’t dare make”. Wives would come up to him and say: “I wish my husband was as courageous”.

Revival of the soul

Since he opened in 2015 till the Beirut port explosion on August 4th, 2020, business was thriving, “the golden phase” as he calls it. Fady changed after the tragedy, watching people die and his place blown to bits. He closed for four months and seriously contemplated emigrating. During that time, he went through rough times and hit rock bottom. He thought back to when he got paid a substantial amount, with bonuses and shares in his corporate career. “I got off the couch for my children, to set a good example for them”, confesses Fady.

Due to popular demand, he reopened at the end of 2020. Still, it wasn’t what he wanted anymore. Covid, the Gaza war, and the economic crisis took a toll. On October the 7th 2023, he packed his bags and left to learn yoga in India and Sri Lanka. “The most valuable commodity is time, and you can’t bring it back. I felt drained. I fled to revive my soul”.

Rising from the rubble

If it weren’t for his thirteen-year-old son, and twenty-one-year-old daughter, he would’ve remained there. Though he pondered opening a yoga center with healthy food, his heart belonged to the restaurant business. “I love people, the crowd, hearing their chatter, and the appreciative sounds as they’re savoring my dishes”, says Fady. He reopened the Pizzaria Trattoria in Mar Mikhael, featuring Italian cuisine, not just pizza like the original, on its menu.

This time around, he had ammo in his arsenal. He wanted to avoid all the mistakes he’d made in the old location, one being the open kitchen. The environment in it is tough with workers yelling at each other. He would be entrenched in the process when people came up to him to socialize. Understandably, he wouldn’t be in the right frame of mind. People would get offended saying: “Fady is not sociable, he didn’t greet us properly”.

Daring to dream

Contrary to what some may assume, he is so approachable and authentic that he put himself at the forefront with warm and engaging reels promoting the Pizzaria. “Don’t tell people what you’re doing, just get up in the morning and get to work. Succeed at it and don’t listen to anyone”, shares Fady.

He wakes up for his business, not knowing what the outcome will be, and fights for it daily. The next step is to become famous for his prowess, despite not having formal culinary education and previous experience in restaurants.

“Keep learning to keep thriving”. Taking an online course for content creation and filmmaking, he’s filled with dedication to this journey, excitement over filming reels, and concocting novel recipes. Fady is going merely on faith and devotion to his children. As he opens the doors early in the morning, not a soul in sight, he starts to envision what new recipe he will create.