Dareen Akkad is the mastermind and head chef behind an incredible little pizzeria in the heart of Cairo. Even though she struggles with the label ‘chef’, she has created a lovely place with her husband where people can come to enjoy some of the best pizza in the world. Yes! The world! They have been ranked as one of the Top 100 Best Pizzerias in the world for their Neapolitan pizzas.
When you think of Cairo, you don’t automatically think pizza, and less so of a pizzeria owned and run by a woman. But Dareen has been working hard with the support of her husband Ahmed Helmy to put her pizza place on the global map. What The Crust sold its first pizzas in April 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid lockdowns. Dareen tells us how “the day coincided with the date of our wedding anniversary (not deliberately, but cool nonetheless). It took about a year and a half of planning from conception to birth, from the moment we said “let’s open a Neapolitan pizzeria” to the day we sold our first pie.”
At the same time as setting up a business, Dareen was raising three little children, searching for locations, raising funds, looking for suppliers, and once she found the location – she and her husband DIYed all the renovations. Dareen traveled to Naples to learn how to make authentic pizza. Although Dareen and Ahmed wanted a little bit of time before they had to start selling pizza, they were thrust into the business because her husband lost an important contract due to covid and they had no choice but to sell pizzas right away. “As a restaurant, we were considered a vital business, so we were able to sell by delivering to a tight radius in our neighborhood, and close early for curfew. No dine-ins until July 2020, at 50% capacity. And to be honest, this slow and steady start was a blessing in disguise. I was able to make mistakes without the pressure of performance,” she explains.
Dareen spent half her childhood in Kuwait and it is a large part of her inspiration. When she first started working in Kuwait and when she had first met her husband, she started frequenting a new pizzeria that made authentic Neapolitan pizza: Solo Pizza Napulitana. She used to often ask the owner to work there, and he just used to smile and nod. “I don’t know if he remembers me, but I am grateful for his inspiration.” Dareen shares. It was at that moment she told her now husband “One day…I’m going to do this. I’m not cut out for work at a desk. This is what I want to do. I want to have my own restaurant.”
Although Dareen and Ahmed both worked in the advertising business, both with a background in copywriting, the name and branding were one of the very last things to be ready. As they planned and worked through their to-do lists, they could not agree or come up with a name. She shares that “when it came to our own brand… we were drawing blanks. We weren’t Italian, so we didn’t want an Italian name. And we didn’t want to JUST make pizza forever and ever… I had a dream that we could one day grow to an empire of crusty products, and our motto was “a good crust is universal”. One night we were sitting on the balcony expressing our angst to a friend, and when she asked us what we were going to call the business, I was so frustrated that I thought… You know… The rude one… And to be funny I said… ‘What the Crust!’ They both looked at me and smiled, their eyes lit up.” We have to say, we absolutely love the name!
We asked Dareen how difficult the process of starting the business was, she opened up about how the “process wasn’t difficult; there are legal frameworks in place that make it relatively straightforward to start almost any small business in Egypt. The challenges came after the setup and related mostly to the type of product we decided to make; finding consistent ingredients, equipment and expertise is the real challenge for any restaurant, and even more so in a market like Egypt. We’ve persevered by getting creative where necessary and holding our ground where we must. We try hard to change the way we operate to suit the market, with one core focus: that the final product remains unchanged. This has meant hard sacrifices about how and where we grow, but we believe that if the quality we promise isn’t delivered, we’ve failed.”
When recruiting for their pizzeria, Dareen found that there was no one size fits all business approach in Egypt. She found that instead of recruiting experienced chefs or service professionals, she was better off starting from a clean slate and focusing her efforts on training young, less-experienced staff, and growing from within. She also works with agencies who help refugees with job placements, which she finds to be a great resource, and her team has always consisted partly of refugees. Dareen takes pride in seeing that she has team members who have started as housekeeping staff and have grown to become prep cooks or pizzaiolos.
The menu at What The Crust has been inspired by good quality ingredients. Dareen says “We always had a very simple menu – classic Neapolitan pizzas and a few salads, fresh juices and a couple of desserts. We were launching a style of pizza we feared may not be as well received as the commonly known definition of pizza in Egypt. We focused our efforts on finding the best possible ingredients for the fewest number of items: quality over quantity. The spirit of our menu has grown to highlight more local, high-quality ingredients, especially since Egypt has been going through some economic changes which made the availability of imports very erratic. This has pushed local producers to create some outstanding products and produce, and we are reaping the benefits!”
Dareen started this pizzeria with a strong core belief that everyone loves pizza, and she is glad that she was right. The response has been better than she had ever imagined. However, it has not all been easy, Dareen enlightens us on the challenges: “We are completely overwhelmed, and also a little burned out. We grew in popularity so quickly, and worked so hard, that we feel like we need to let everything run like a Swiss clock for a while.”
But with hard work comes great reward, In the 3 years since that What The Crust has launched, they have opened two other What the Crust outlets and have a third under construction, through their franchise partners. They have also recently opened a sourdough bakery called The Daily Kneads.
Dareen’s hard work has paid off, and she has achieved great accolades and has put Cairo on the global map in terms of pizza. She shares that she is “a creative person. I am a bit of a performer, and a storyteller. When I was a child, I wished I could become an artist (and I still wish that). I have an innate desire to make things, and I enjoy the process of doing more so than the destination or final reward. I am great at coming up with ideas, I am crafty, I am energetic, and I love to travel. I am very glad that my work allows me to tickle many of my fancies, but I don’t care for being or doing just ONE thing.” No wonder she loves baking bread and pizza so much – it is all about the process.
If you ever frequent Cairo, we urge you to enjoy some pizza and fabulous breads that Dareen has in store for you! We also recommend that you follow the What The Crust journey – we know this is a brand that is going places. Follow them on Instagram @What_The_Crust.
