Community’s kitchen West End Somali-inspired restaurant cooks global, thinks local By: Eva Wasney Posted: 5:20 PM CDT Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024

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This article was published 22/10/2024 (649 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sucad Mahamed is determined to leave a legacy.

The 25-year-old moved to Winnipeg from Somalia in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic.

“All my family are back home,” Mahamed says of her mother and four siblings. “I came here by myself, looking for a better life.”

She’s done more than look. Since her arrival, Mahamed has finished high school, received post-secondary scholarships, enmeshed herself in the community and opened a restaurant to help fund her future goals of becoming a nurse.

“I do like helping people. (It’s why) God, he put me here,” she says.

At the moment, she’s channelling that selflessness into home-cooked food and warm customer service at Som Legacy Restaurant on Sargent Avenue.

“It’s a lot of work, but at the end of the day, you are happy spending every day with the community and serving people and making someone’s day better,” Mahamed says.

Occasionally, that means forgoing profit.

“Sometimes, I don’t sell food, but, you know, there’s a community around who don’t always have enough to pay or offer. If you feel like you are hungry, come here; this place is open for everyone,” she says.

Som Legacy celebrated its first anniversary in September.

The restaurant is small and tidy with big windows, colourful knick-knacks and a wall of faux plants behind the counter. There’s seating for 50 and a separate dining room available to rent for private functions.

This isn’t the first time Mahamed has operated her own food business. As a teen living with a foster family in Thailand, she gained a following selling homemade Somali delicacies, smoothies and spiced tea.

“I had a lot of customers,” she says.

Mahamed learned how to cook at a young age from her mother. The Somali dishes on the menu at Som Legacy — such as bariis iyo hilib, lamb shank with rice — are an homage to those early lessons.

“She’s the one who taught me every single thing. Most of the food reminds me of my mom. It gives me a deep heart whenever I am cooking,” she says.

Mahamed shares the restaurant’s kitchen and food philosophy with friend Amer Alzubi.

Originally from Jordan, Alzubi is a trained chef with nearly two decades of international kitchen experience. He found work as a line cook when he moved to Winnipeg several years ago, but missed cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients.

Mahamed and Alzubi met through a mutual friend. She invited him to manage the kitchen and put his stamp on the menu at Som Legacy, resulting in a blending of cultures and cuisines.

“I am the Middle East, she is the Africa,” Alzubi says with a smile.

The small restaurant has an outsized menu of traditional Somali stews and rice platters and Jordanian shawarma and kebabs, alongside North American-inspired poutines, pastas and sandwiches.

It’s an unexpected mix of food intended to appeal to a wide customer base and reflect the diverse West End neighbourhood in which the restaurant resides.

“Most of the food reminds me of my mom. It gives me a deep heart whenever I am cooking.”–Sucad Mahamed, restaurant owner

Along Sargent Avenue in the immediate vicinity of Som Legacy, diners can find an array of Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, Filipino and Portuguese restaurants and bakeries.

“Our community in Winnipeg is a big community who likes to taste different countries’ food, so we try our best to make everything,” Mahamed says.

Alzubi’s main priority is quality.

“We don’t have anything (frozen). We make everything to order; it’s fresh food,” he says.

A year into running her own restaurant, Mahamed continues to look forward. She plans to return to school and wants to see Som Legacy grow enough to open more locations. When she talks about her future, there’s no uncertainty in her voice.

“If this business succeeds, it doesn’t just mean I succeed — it means one of the businesses from Winnipeg succeeds,” Mahamed says, adding she hopes to be a role model for other young women.

“If you have talent, it doesn’t matter big or small, do it. And be patient because without patience in this life, you can’t do much. Be a strong woman, a strong girl, who can focus on her vision and her future. If you build your own self, then you can build the rest of the community as well.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney