Historic market with open-air Arab and Persian kitchens in Kuwait City (old market), Kuwait

Souq Al-Mubarakiya

Bread from the clay oven

3.5 of 5

Kuwait City has malls with valet parking and ice rinks. For lunch, skip all of them and walk into Souq Al-Mubarakiya, the old market between Abdullah Al-Salem and Palestine Streets that was trading long before anyone struck oil. Named for Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah, it sells carpets, oud, dates, spices, fish and gold, and it feeds the people who come for them. A fire tore through one section in March 2022. The rest kept cooking.

The Persian thread runs through the bread. In 2019 Malay Mail described Al-Walimah, opened in 1996 by a Kuwaiti of Iranian origin, where an Iranian baker turns out taftoon from a clay oven and the smell drifts across the market. The same report said almost every restaurant in the old souk keeps its own clay oven, and it named baja, karaeen, chickpeas and beans with cooked fish on the tables. Tear the taftoon while it is hot and use it as cutlery. Ask whether the oven is lit before you sit.

Eat in the courtyard by the Sea Mosque, where cafés brew tea over coals and small kitchens serve Arab and Persian plates at open-air tables. In summer, pipes spray mist over the diners, which is engineering in the service of lunch, and I approve. A Punjabi freakonomist will tell you the economics are simple: the bread costs almost nothing, the kebab not much more, and the tea keeps you in your chair. Weekends stay busy until midnight. Lunch is calmer, and it is the right hour for the bread.

Order this

Iranian taftoon bread from the clay oven, Kebabs from the courtyard grills, Tea brewed over coals

The damage

$

Go

Lunch for the bread and calmer crowds; weekend evenings run lively until midnight

Find it

Between Abdullah Al-Mubarak, Abdullah Al-Salem and Palestine Streets, Kuwait City