Written by: Hala Syed
Posted on: December 31, 2018 | 
| 中文
Samar Husain teaching a class at Pinch & Co.
Given the choice, I’d pick a dinner party over a restaurant. Even the most brilliant restaurant boils down to commerce, while a dinner party uses food to connect people. In a best case scenario, a beautifully laid table and meticulously planned meal are not the goal, but the channel for interesting, honest and meaningful conversation.
Located in Clifton, Karachi, Pinch & Co. feels more like a large scale, on-going dinner party, than a traditional food business. At the centre of it all is its founder, the consummate hostess - Samar Husain. She welcomes all her guests with light jovial warmth, and has created a space that smells like heaven and feels like home.
“We are a weird concept- a kitchen studio space. People don’t understand whether we’re a cooking school, catering house or restaurant development consultancy. Being a kitchen studio allows us the flexibility to do all those things,” says Samar Husain.
A single space where 5 different chefs are doing 5 different things, builds community. A class where complete beginners learn alongside chef aspirants and mothers, who have been cooking for years, builds community. Even sharing the products of donut workshop with neighbourhood businesses, builds community. Pinch & Co. builds community simply by existing.
This is a place where all kinds of people can come together through something we all share. Food is essential and universal, involving feeding, cooking, and sharing, making it a natural tool for positive change. Samar wants to change the way people think and experience food. Pinch & Co. will host pop ups where you can buy 3 tacos for Rs 300, sit on steel tables next to people you don’t know and leave. On the other end, they will host 12 course dinners with nouvelle cuisine, employing the latest in molecular gastronomy.
“I want to play with the standards of food service and customer expectations.”
By having something for everybody, Samar is bending and challenging so many of the rules we see as default, simply because that’s the way it’s been done before. There isn’t just one right way to cook or eat or even think about food.
“This lady had come to me with a recipe and wanted exact directions. I told her that there are many ways you can achieve the same result. She got very frustrated. When you start to experiment with different processes, you start to think. I want people to think in the kitchen.”
Pakistan is full of outdated cooking schools that mint money and churn out mindless cooks. Pinch & Co. aims to genuinely educate people about food. So far, 13 chefs including Zoya Qidwai (World Cuisine), Maria Muffadal (Bohra) and Hussain Tariq (Desi) have taught classes there. One-day workshops range from bread-making and cake decorating, to bartending and food photography.
Samar encourages people to look beyond the recipe, and understand the ingredients before combining them. Too often, we overcook our food because we don’t know the correct temperature that needs to be maintained or we use the wrong oil. These small things are as important as learning complicated processes. Food knowledge builds confidence, which makes both cooking and eating a lot more fun.
“I’m looking at food now very much with regards to how you consume it and how it interacts with your body and how it is affected by the climate.”
The idea of “foodies” is so divisive and diminutive. We should all be paying attention to what and how we eat. It’s not an affectation; it’s an essential part of human existence. Right now, two main trends are prevalent. People are gorging on 5 pound burgers or are following strict limited diets. There’s nothing in the middle. Very few have a general sense of healthfulness. There are burger places that are loading their burgers with sauces and adding a million spices, to hide the fact that they are using inferior quality beef. If you don’t know what you’re eating and never question it, then it’s just eating for the sake of eating and there’s nothing meaningful to it.
In contrast, Samar plans to do a yoga class in conjunction with a healthy eating class, to show how to integrate food into your lifestyle. Being more mindful of what we put into our bodies instead of blindly consuming is better for us and the world we live in.
“My only fear is that one day I won’t be able to create more food. Right now, I have a hundred recipes a minute in my head; it’s easy. I’ll be very sad when it becomes hard.”
Learning to cook isn’t only about skill, it’s about learning to love food. Samar loves food so much that it’s hard to be around her without absorbing some of it. She loves teaching and it’s a testament to her generosity of spirit that she’s proud when she comes across one of her recipes at a restaurant (unless it’s made badly).
Appreciating food as a cultural force, and not just fuel, is at the heart of this kitchen studio. After 15 years in the industry as a menu consultant and caterer, opening a solo restaurant might have been the expected route. But for someone with this many ideas and this much passion, a restaurant is limiting and boring. Restaurants open and close every day, because people think the business is glamorous, but they don’t fully understand it. On the other hand, a space like this isn’t glamorous; it’s authentic and inviting and pushes the industry forward. As long as Samar Husain keeps having fun, and coming up with new ideas, we will have a place to share our love of food.
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