A couple of weeks ago while walking along Abbot Kinney Boulevard (a street lined with D.S&DURGA, The Butcher’s Daughter, an Erewhon, a Salt & Straw, a Cha Cha Matcha - and other highly slick and stylized, distinctly American outlets, made to be questionably namedropped in about 7 other cities) I saw what I thought I came for, OAKBERRY.
Without even the smallest doubt, I can say that I learned about OAKBERRY through a @Gstaadguy reel, of Cousin Colton visiting Jeddah F1. For those of you who aren’t chronically online, or desperate culture vultures interested in lampooning/participating in the lifestyle of a midwit 1%, The Gstaad Guy (real name Mac Anabtawi) is a comedian that alternatingly plays a young European Snob with the tastes of landed gentry, and a highly “LA” influencer, currently complete with AirPods Max, Salomons, charm bracelets that look like they’re edible, large angular sunglasses.. etc. etc.
“What is good guys, Cousin Colton here in Jeddah, Sawdi Araybiah!…” (Anabtawi, not to teach you to suck eggs, is of Levantine origin) - after doing some Islamic Cultural Bits, CC immediately heads to an OAKBERRY to get a quick Saudi acai bowl. The OAKBERRY in Jeddah looks 99% identical to the one I went to North of Muscle Beach. There’s one transitionary scene while CC gets ready to go to the F1 track, and then OAKBERRY is name-checked for a second, and third! time - in the form of some branded car on the track, and a water bottle. The reel seems to be as much an #ad for OAKBERRY as it was Saudi.
At OAKBERRY in AK, I got the second-smallest bowl I think, with paçoca crumbs (crumbled peanut brittle candy - typically of Brazil, specifically central-southern Brazilian cuisine, or food of the Caipiras), matcha powder, and strawberries IIRC. It was fantastic, maybe the perfect Wellness Snack. Expensive, photogenic, tasty, cute mascot, option for Nido, OAKBERRY seemed designed out of a cheeto-burger-covered-in-karak template for the Khaleej. It also seemed to capture that effervescent brand-position of pretty commercial but still cool enough that it isn’t uncool to be a patron of, but maybe this is a retroactive filter rather than an intentional marketing strategy.
OAKBERRY is the biggest acai brand in the world, with 500 locations in almost 40 countries. So I’m pretty surprised at myself that it took this long to come across. OAKBERRY is a sponsor of the Haas/MoneyGram F1 Team. Over 10 branches in the Emirates, 5 in Qatar, and seemingly over 20 in Saudi. Sounds about right for the most current darling of the GCC, in the cyclical tango between the Occident and the Orient (I zapped some SAMBAZON, from the O.C, while thinking about this piece - the delicious powers of acai!).
Anyone who has been to a large GCC city and Los Angeles sometime in the last 33 years (arbitrary) could tell you that there are uncanny similarities. The palm boulevards, the facelift clinics, the strip malls, the corniches, the insistence on a car for each person, a simulacra of public transport, endless burgers, and for the purposes of this essay - the same food spots. A perpetual talking point among some friends and family, and I guess certain types of West Londoners and West Angelenos, is what makes a place Khaleeji (largely derogatory). It’s EL&N, it’s Urth, it’s obviously Chapati & Karak, it’s that cafe in Rodeo Drive that has $50 hats saying its nice to be nice:), it’s FRAME (i just saw that they brew la cabra beans) and Saddle and perhaps epitomised in home bakery whose signature bakes are Tartine’s buckwheat/rye chocolate cookies.
Any casual newsreader or someone with a professional services job would’ve noticed the revived enthusiasm for Saudi Arabia. Not so much in the British-teachers-go-to-Dubai-to-live-in-Marina-and-go-to-Saffron way, but in an AlUla pop-up pink Majlis, and MDL Beast, and Saudi Technology Ventures way. Every single elite consumer experience in the world is required have a branch somewhere in the country, on top of the existing Said dal 1923, Ciprianis, LPMs, and seemingly endless speciality coffee shops ala 2016-2020. For the Khaleeji summer in London, 1/2 million has opened on Oxford Street and is depressingly the only choice for a coffee on the high street that isn’t a high street coffee (or blank street). The signature drink is a Spanish latte as if we still hate ourselves. The coffee is patently average. The other Saudiesque opening (the promoter is half-Saudi iirc) is halfway through Mayfair, around the corner from Berkely Square, contributing to Curzon Street Action. Guillam actually has very good coffee, and seems more in line with what would open in Saudi in the current year, for a customer that hopefully no longer wants sickly drinks and seems to know the difference between a long black and a Kalita-wave pour over (about 5 Riyals).
A close friend recently came back from Riyadh and described it as being a lot less exciting than the reels would have you believe (although now that I think about it the reels never explicitly talk about Riyadh, they’re always about rejuvenated desert towns, or singular cultural events in other cities) - and they brought me back some:
Cue ‘since 2013’ groan
Roasting House claims to be Saudi’s first speciality coffee roasters and sells Hoffmanesque equipment, like the FOB grinder, beans from around the equator described by the processing method and clickable tasting notes (strawberry cheesecake) to appeal to both the tourist and the purist. I kindly received some Saudi Coffee, a style but also the place of origin! Grown in the Khawlan mountains, Southwestern Saudi to Northwestern Yemen. In 2022, Saudi got Khawlani coffee bean protocols delineated as a piece of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ by UNESCO. My knowledge of how to make gahwa was also pretty intangible, so I made it in a bodum metal-filter pour-over and it was pretty rank. Unclear if it was the distinctive oily odour ascribed to Khawlani beans, or the obviously incorrect method of brewing - but it was not very pleasant. The taste of stale peanutshells combined with wet potatoes - it had all the essence of a Five Guys booth at a funny time like three forty five pm on a Tuesday.
Roasting House brandishes the ‘SAUDI MADE’ emblem, and has the small ‘2023 Year of Poetry’ in the top right corner of the label. Unclear if London-Met graduated Osamah Al Awwam is a Mandarin or just a nationalist, but it seems interesting to use the kinds of logos you'd find on products at a souvenir shop on a speciality coffee product, presumably privately-owned.
Probably unfair to compare a coffee I made incorrectly to something I made in exactly the intended format - but last year, the Saudi Year of Coffee (I wonder what 2024 will be the Year of), I had very decent coffee at Sard Cafe at Expo20 and bought the most expensive Nespresso-compatible saffron-cardamom gahwa pods, and they were sublime. Seemingly made just for Sard at Expo, as I can’t find any record of them online.
Arab News
20-25 minute drive from Abbott Kinney I went to a dinner hosted by a Saudi Government entity. The event was themed ‘A Night in Saudi Arabia’ and had shisha which no one seemed to be interested in, a wonderful oud melody being played by a kandoora-d bloke, orientally garbed gahwistas serving mint tea and a Classically Composed menu of Khaleeji hits, mixed with some contemporary takes. As if just a great mandi and madbi wasn’t enough, committing to serving jareesh and sayadeya alongside a dried lemon crudo was a good statement in showcasing heritage alongside oppeness to new influence.
I think 2024 will see Michelin opening in Saudi, following about 2 years in the UAE (where it had a pretty bizzare and poor rollout, other than Moonrise maybe) - it’ll be interesting to see how they navigate a country that probably still won’t be serving alcohol anywhere, and has a rich and intense cuisine that isn’t particularly globalised or experimented with by a diaspora. I think alongside the MDL Beasts and Red Sea Film Festivals of the country, there's going to be a more targeted and sophisticated Food as High Culture swing coming - not just the Chef Izu spots but homegrown and experimental talent being recognised, and supported.
Further reading:
1 restaurant out of the ‘MEA top 50 (lol)’, number 18 in Riyadh. Number 23, in Riyadh. On La Liste - Dubai has 6, Doha has 2, even Bahrain has 4, Saudi - zero. The Ministry of Culture would like a word.