Saffron De Twah Brings Moroccan Cooking To Detroit

Chef Omar Anani, who is involved in the James Beard Foundation’s Taste of America program, started with a food truck in Detroit, which led to his opening Saffron De Twah, a Moroccan restaurant in 2019. Indeed his restaurant was also a semi-finalist for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2020. But why is it called De Twah and not Detroit?

Anani says De-twah is the French pronunciation of Detroit, which was acquired in the Louisiana purchase and Morocco was a French colony well into the 1900’s. Hence its name signifies Detroit’s history as well as the French influence on the Moroccan culture.

Anani, who was raised in Grand Rapids, Mich., and fell in love with cooking at a young age, graduated from the Art Institute for Culinary School, which brought him to Detroit, where he has been ensconced since.

To create food that was accessible for the masses, he launched a food truck, first called Qais and then rebranded as Twisted Mitten. It was one of the first Halal food trucks in Detroit and was financed by a loan from his parents, which helped buy the truck.

Farm to Street Approach

Anani calls it “farm to street” food because he’d buy local ingredients, and when he ran out of food, he’d run to the local farmer’s market to replenish it and devise new dishes spontaneously. Cooking on the run indeed.

Twisted Mitten flourished, which led him to owning several food trucks including Fat Panda Kitchen, Grill Billies BBQ, Un Poco Loco and a hot dog cart, though currently only Twisted Mitten is operating.

Catering Produces 50% of Revenue

When his parents loaned him money to buy the building to store his various food trucks, he turned it into Saffron De Twah. It accommodates 15 people inside, but has a patio space which seats around 75 people. Its revenue stems 50% from catering, covering many corporate events, board meetings, and graduation parties, 35% from the restaurant itself and 20% from take-out and delivery.

A Palestinian chef in Detroit is building a following with his Moroccan eatery that is leading to two new spin-offs.

He describes its menu as “Moroccan cuisine with African influences” so it’s more African than it is Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. Some of its specialties include the Moroccan chicken sandwich and Moroccan fish sandwich.

Moroccan Chicken Sandwich

Its Moroccan chicken sandwich almost led to its downfall. He describes it as a “massive jumbo whole thigh, brined in peppers, cilantro and seasonings, and then breaded with panko to make it crispy, then seasoned with berbere directly out of the fryer.” Then the Rising Stars Academy, a school for autistic and disable adults, make the challah bun.

Originally it charged $8 for this massive sandwich, but when the Popeyes crispy chicken sandwich craze started, customers, seeing its cut-rate price, were coming in droves to order 10 to 20 at a time. When they ran out of chicken early one day, they decided to retire the chicken sandwich, before it ran the restaurant out of business. Six-hundred people showed up at its retirement party.

Its Moroccan fish sandwich, now made with basa fish, and smothered in green chermoula sauce, is another best-seller.

And Anani is a chef on the rise. He’s developing two new restaurants, both in its existing neighborhood One will specialize in Palestinian cuisine, which will celebrate Anani’s roots, and the other will reflect its neighborhood, and will have subsidized housing in apartments above the restaurant for its employees.

The Taste for America program involves about 20 events in 2024 and 2025 includes walk-around tastings with food as well as 10 pop-up dinners. The events attract mostly foodies, food enthusiasts and fans of the chef, says a spokesperson for the James Beard Foundation

At the Taste of America event in New York City that Anani participated in, he served warbat, a cheesy bread pudding, which is how his family made it in Jerusalem. It included a crispy flakiness of its dough, a creamy filling, and preserved lemon for tartness.

“To be able to show case my people’s Palestinian food creates the ability for people to find commonalities and new experiences that enhances a richness in life,” Anani concludes.