Dubai: A grin slowly breaks across the face of a clean-shaven Emirati man in his mid-40s as he chomps on an Iranian yoghurt chicken kabab inside Ostadi Special Restaurant in Bur Dubai.
The sour tenderness of the marinated fare — an Emirati favourite at the famous eatery here since it opened 38 years ago — isn’t just food, it’s a celebration for Dubai natives whose families have patronised the grill for decades, says the man draped in full national dress.
“I tell you, this is the best food. I have been coming here since I was a little boy with my father. Ostadi is a tradition in my family and I never want to see it close,” he said. “We miss Mr. Ali Ansari very much.”
Ostadi founder and restaurateur Mohammad Ali Ansari died at age 83 on August 10, 2015 in Shiraz, Iran, leaving a big hole not only for his customers and his own family in Dubai but also within Al Fahidi business community lining Al Mussallah Road in Bur Dubai.
By all accounts, Ali Ansari was the friendliest proprietor on the street with a knack for feeding a large, loyal cabal of foodies who shared a steady hankering for his tasty chicken or lamb kababs.
After working in his father’s Bur Dubai grocery store as a young man, Ali Ansari opened the Ostadi Special Restaurant in 1978 armed with his yoghurt kebab recipe that he imported from his hometown of Garesh, Iran.
A young Ali Ansari first arrived in Dubai as a nine-year-old in 1941 when Dubai was a village of 5,000 people living along Dubai Creek.
“The yoghurt is very important to us. It has to be very sour to make the meat soft,” he once said in a Gulf News interview in 2008. “It is a traditional fare served at marriage feasts in my country.”
Today, just inside the Ostadi’s front door, the empty chair left by Ali Ansari’s passing has been assumed by his three sons who watched their father build a business from scratch into a cultural touchstone.
Sons — Majid, 48, Talib, 46, and Abbas, 38 — have assumed the mantle and judging by the bustling crush of customers jammed into the eclectic restaurant, business has never been better.
A recent visit by Gulf News found Abbas serving customers amid an atmosphere filled with a sense of camaraderie as old and young greeted him upon entering and leaving the premises.
The Ostadi now has an expanded seating area for up to 84 customers surrounded by all manner of curiosities such as hundreds of banknotes from around the world on display under glass — mementoes left by happy customers — to old mobile phones, cameras and thousands of customer snapshots adorning the walls. [Abdel Krim Kallouche / Gulf News]
Abbas, the youngest son, said he and his brothers know they have big shoes to fill to honour a lifetime of their father’s work.
“Our customers tell us every day that they are proud of us for keeping up our father’s legacy,” Abbas said. “Maintaining the quality of the food and the restaurant is a must.”
More important, he said, is that the boys are carrying on their father’s spirit of affability to help continue a sense of a home away from home for hundreds of loyal customers who frequent the restaurant weekly.
“My dad taught us how to be patient, to be kind, and how to live our life,” he said. “We miss him very much and what we were taught, we are now passing on to our own children. Now I teach them to share, not to be greedy, to be happy with what God gave you.”
In his dad’s absence, Abbas marvels at his father’s work ethic and stamina needed to helm a restaurant that has always seemingly been brimming with patrons throughout the day.
“My father was still working at 83, he used to come in every single day. I am only 39 and I get tired. He was my role model,” Abbas said.
