MENA's 50 Best Academy Chair Sherif Tamim Links Conversation & Cuisine

Food, for Sherif Tamim, has never behaved like a fixed thing. It moves. It gathers. It changes shape depending on who is present and how they arrive. A meal, in this sense, is a temporary arrangement — of bodies, habits, attention — held together by timing and shared appetite.

“It’s about hands, gestures, timing, conversations, silences,” he explains. “I’m more interested in what happens around food than food itself,” Tamim explains. Simply put, it’s the story behind the food that has always drawn his attention. It is part of culture, design, and human connection.

That way of seeing began behind a camera. Tamim started working as a lifestyle and food photographer in 2003, training his eye on moments rather than outcomes. By 2007, his practice expanded into the culinary world through a collaboration with Hoda El-Sherif — a partnership rooted in observation, rhythm, and shared curiosity.

Those instincts would later take shape as Flavor Republic, founded in 2015 as a creative platform built around storytelling. From its earliest work, the approach was consistent: food was treated as part of a wider ecosystem, shaped by people, place, and process rather than isolated output.

In its early years, Flavor Republic focused on building narratives for restaurants, chefs, and cultural projects across Egypt. As the region’s culinary scene expanded and digital platforms reshaped how food was documented and discussed, the platform evolved in response — attentive to how stories travel, who tells them, and what they reveal about a place. It is now at the forefront of the larger nationwide objective to put Egyptian gastronomy on the global culinary map.

This way of working has also shaped Cairo Food Week, which Flavor Republic co-founded as a citywide framework rather than a traditional food festival. Across its editions, Cairo Food Week has positioned food as a cultural lens — connecting chefs, producers, designers, and audiences through conversations, collaborations, and context-driven experiences that extend beyond the plate.

What remained unchanged across both platforms was a shared belief: food gains meaning through connection. Seen collectively rather than individually, it becomes a record of collaboration — between farmers and cooks, designers and servers, kitchens and cities.

In recent years, Tamim observed a region growing into itself. Locally, businesses have been building platforms that reflect their environments and communities, contributing to a more grounded culinary landscape. Through his role as one of the MENA Academy Chairs for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, he watched regional talent step into global conversations with increasing clarity and confidence. His perspective is shaped by a multidisciplinary background. Trained in architecture before moving into photography, Tamim approaches food spatially — attentive to environments, relationships, and the moments that unfold between them.

“Food doesn’t exist alone. It’s shaped by farmers, cooks, designers, servers, cities, and memories,” he said. Seeing food as part of a collective allows richer stories to exist, and more honest ones. I think that approach creates deeper, more sustainable scenes.”

As the region welcomed the world to Abu Dhabi for the fifth edition of MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants, Tamim’s perspective returned to the same principle that guided his journey from the start.

“Chefs and creatives in the region are no longer trying to imitate elsewhere, they’re owning who they are,” Tamim explains. “What matters now is how we use that visibility, to support local voices, tell honest stories, and avoid turning success into repetition.”