Emily Hays Photo
Havenly Treats Head Chef Nieda Abbas packs up boxes of grape leaves.
The staff wrapped the grape leaves carefully, filled them with just the right amount of tomato sauce and rice. The finished product — an Iraqi appetizer — was then available for purchase for $4.99.
It also served as a way for refugees to train for gainful employment.
The appetizer was for sale Tuesday, opening day for a new storefront business at 25 Temple St. run by a nonprofit called Havenly Treats.
It’s the second space in a few months for the nonprofit. This time, they have a year lease and bright orange evidence of their plans to stay.
Tuesday’s grape leaves were not quite up to the aesthetic goals of Head Chef Nieda Abbas.
“Over time, they will become more standardized. For the first time, they really learned a lot,” Abbas said.
The Temple Street location allows Havenly Treats to expand beyond the baklava they have become known for. The restaurant serves a mezze-style collection of appetizers like hummus and parsley-based tabbouleh, as well as main dishes like a falafel sandwich and the rice dish biryani.
All of the dishes have an Iraqi twist. Abbas’ style of grape leaves have tomato sauce and are less lemon-heavy than Syrian versions. The sauce on the falafel sandwich involves pickled mango, and the tea includes cardamom.
Tucked behind the kitchen is a classroom. The six refugee fellows in the Havenly Treats program spend an hour a day on English, food safety, digital and financial literacy or advocacy. The last class teaches the fellows how to navigate local government to access services and push for policies.
Like local schools that are meeting in-person, only half of the class is present on any one day. The others attend the class virtually.
For Havenly Treats fellow Maryam Tareq (pictured above), Tuesday’s cooking lessons were not as novel as the chance to work the iPad-based cash register.
Tareq is the oldest of five siblings and helps her mother cook for the family. The family left Iraq when Tareq was 7 years old and then later fled from Syria to Turkey to await passage to the United States.
Tareq has spent six years in New Haven now and has graduated from James Hillhouse High School and Gateway Community College. She is hoping to become a nutritionist and is thinking about more university education to achieve that goal.
“I love to give advice: how to eat healthy, that some food is not good. I love to help,” Tareq explained.
She spent Tuesday cooking and learning how to take orders.
“I’m so excited, because this is my first time,” she said.
Only a few tables and bright orange chairs fill the cafe space in front of the counter where Tareq was working. While indoor seating is available, the restaurant is focusing on pickups and deliveries for the time being.
Havenly Executive Director Caterina Passoni said that the group knows the Covid-19 pandemic is a difficult time to open a restaurant. She expects that sales may drop off after Yale sends students home in November, but the organization’s baklava sales to cafes and grocery stores maintains a minimum income for the organization. If things get dire, the nonprofit also has access to fundraising in a way that most restaurants do not.
Havenly Treats has mostly been in pandemic relief mode for months, cooking free meals for refugee families and distributing them through the Semilla Collective and Apostle Immigrant Services. Passoni estimated that the organization has donated 7,000 meals. They have the resources to continue the food aid for three months.
“We know a lot of businesses are struggling right now,” Passoni said. “It is definitely going to be difficult, but we are hoping this is something the community will want to support. And the food is delicious.”
First-time customers Jon Ozaksut (left) and Rebecca Schneider (right) agreed. The pair lives across the street and had spotted the new restaurant on the block. After scoping out Havenly Treats’ Instagram page, they decided to walk in.
Passoni told the pair that the asabe was free, as one dish would be each day of the opening week. They nodded and each accepted one of the rolled pastries.
After a request from the Independent, Ozaksut and Schneider turned away from the reporter, took off their masks and bit into the treats.
“It’s great. It’s a little different from baklava. I’m used to the pistachios in baklava and this has cashews. It’s nice,” Ozaksut reported.
“This is delicious. It’s a great treat,” Schneider said.
“I’m glad they’re here,” Ozaksut added.
Havenly Treats is open from noon to 8 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. See the full menu here.