About Samira Kazan

Hi, I’m Samira. I grew up in Taybe (also spelled Taybeh), a village in the far south of Lebanon, cooking with my mom and helping in my family’s falafel restaurant. I trained as a scientist, earned a DPhil at the University of Oxford, and in 2015 started Alphafoodie, where I develop every recipe.

I live in London, and I’m the author of Lebanese Cuisine: The Authentic Cookbook.

Samira Kazan, founder of Alphafoodie, holding a basket of fruit

Quick facts

  • Based in: London, UK
  • Grew up in: Taybe, south Lebanon
  • Education: DPhil in Engineering Science, University of Oxford (Pembroke College), 2010. Master’s degree in aerospace engineering, Carleton University, Canada.
  • Research: Medical imaging at Oxford, the University of Sheffield and UCL, with peer-reviewed papers in journals including IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and NeuroImage
  • Food safety: Highfield Level 4 Awards in Food Safety Management for Manufacturing and in Managing Food Safety in Catering, both with Distinction (2025). Trained in HACCP-based food safety management.
  • Cookbook: Lebanese Cuisine: The Authentic Cookbook
  • Developing recipes since: 2015
  • Known for: Lebanese home cooking, from-scratch kitchen staples, and colorful, fresh food
  • Awards: Best Food Styling, Pinterest UK Food + Drink Awards (2018); the Golden Apple on Channel 4’s Crazy Delicious (2020)
  • Languages: English and Arabic
  • Follow: Instagram · TikTok · YouTube · Pinterest · Facebook · LinkedIn

Why you can trust my recipes

  • I grew up with this food. The Lebanese recipes here are the dishes I cooked with my mom and served in my family’s restaurant.
  • Every recipe is tested at least three times. I cook it once for myself, again with everything weighed, and a final time when I photograph and film it. If the first try doesn’t work, the recipe goes no further. See the full process.
  • I approach recipes like research. I start with my food science and flavor-pairing books, then test and adjust. When I retested my hummus, I made it three ways side by side.
  • Food safety is built in. I hold two Level 4 food safety qualifications, both with Distinction. When I tell you something keeps for three days in the fridge, that comes from real training.
  • Others have tested my recipes too. When Insider compared homemade cream cheese recipes, their tester said the flavor and texture of mine “took the top prize.”

Growing up in Taybe

I grew up in Taybe, a village in the far south of Lebanon, and lived there until I was about 16. Village life shaped the way I think and the way I eat. Doors stayed open, neighbors came over for breakfast, and if we made something good, we shared it.

Most mornings started with manakish. I made bread with my mom, and we picked herbs straight from the garden. It was easy, slow living.

My mom taught me to cook, mostly by letting me help. After school I’d follow her into the kitchen, and she’d give me small jobs: peeling garlic, washing vegetables, or running to the garden for whatever she needed. When she made lahm bi ajeen or spinach fatayer, I had my hands in the dough.

We were raised to look after ourselves, too. If we were hungry and Mom was busy, we made our own sandwiches. She can cook almost any Lebanese dish you name, and several of her recipes are here on Alphafoodie, including her muhammara, molokhia and mansaf.

The Sun Bar

There were six of us children. To help raise us, my family opened a restaurant alongside my dad’s small tile business, and we called it The Sun Bar. My dad had worked as a chef as a teenager, and falafel was our specialty.

Our sandwiches were packed: crispy falafel, crunchy lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and plenty of tahini sauce. Villagers came, and so did the UN peacekeepers stationed nearby. After school I went straight to the restaurant to help, because the whole family worked as one team.

The Sun Bar is long gone, but my falafel recipe is the one we served there.

From engineering to my kitchen

When I was about 16, the unrest in the south forced my family to leave Lebanon, and we moved to Canada. There I earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering at Carleton University, because I wanted to be an astronaut.

Instead, I came to Oxford in 2006 and completed my DPhil in Engineering Science in 2010, supervised by Stephen Payne. My research built mathematical models of how the heartbeat, and the way blood spreads out as it travels, affect MRI scans that measure blood flow in the brain.

After Oxford I worked as a researcher at the University of Sheffield, on imaging for cancer research, and then at UCL, on brain imaging. At UCL I was lead author on VasA, a method for comparing brain scans across different people more fairly. I’ve taught math to university students for years, and I still teach part-time because I love it.

Living far from home, I called my mom all the time to ask what had gone wrong with my cooking. Those calls taught me as much as any recipe book.

How Alphafoodie began

Alphafoodie started in 2015, while I was still at UCL. Work was so busy that I’d skip breakfast and then eat two lunches, so I started making proper breakfasts and sharing them on Facebook. I didn’t even know what kale was back then.

A friend suggested Instagram, and my colorful breakfasts and smoothie bowls took off. I took some time away from research to focus on it and never went back. In 2017, Alphafoodie became my full-time work. Read more about Alphafoodie.

My cookbook

Lebanese Cuisine: The Authentic Cookbook gathers the dishes I grew up with, from everyday mezze to the specialties of the south, like kamounet banadoura, a tomato and bulgur kibbeh. It was first published by DK in 2022 and is now published by Alphafoodie Press. You can buy it on Amazon UK.

Cover of Lebanese Cuisine: The Authentic Cookbook by Samira Kazan
More about the book

Where you may have seen my work

Brands I’ve worked with include Royal Albert, the BBC, Pinterest, Google, Disney, Tesco, Ocado, Alpro, Clarence Court and Adobe. In 2017, I also met the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III.

Samira Kazan meeting the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, in 2017
With the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, in 2017

Recipes closest to my heart

From my family’s table

The Lebanese pantry, from scratch

Say hello

I share new recipes on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook, all as @alphafoodie. To get my Lebanese recipes by email, join my list. Brands and media can reach me at admin@alphafoodie.com.