Linda Falkenstein
Jordanian coffee at The Nile Bakery and Restaurant.
Nile Mediterranean Cuisine at 6119 Odana Road became Nile Bakery and Restaurant in July with a change of ownership. The Nile, opened in 2011 by former Lulu’s chef Mohammad Hinnawi and other former employees after Lulu’s fell to the wrecking ball on Old University Avenue, is now owned by Mohammad Jaradeh, Ranin Abuzer Jaradeh and Mohammad Albeik.
The previous incarnation of The Nile featured food that was “more Egyptian,” Ranin Abuzer Jaradeh tells Isthmus. The new menu items skew more Palestinian/Jordanian, she says, and all recipes are their own — there’s no carryover from the previous Nile. The trio took over the restaurant in May and made some alterations in the kitchen, reopening officially in July. The big change is the addition of a bakery, which is turning out fresh pita, saj (unleavened bread), Arabic flatbreads with a range of fillings, and small filled meat and chicken pies. “These breads, no one else in Madison has,” says Abuzer Jaradeh.
The Nile serves a Mediterranean breakfast until 12:30 p.m., but if the kitchen isn’t busy, those items can be ordered later in the day by special request, Abuzer Jaradeh says. These breakfast “appetizers,” as the menu calls them, include fatta (kind of a tahini-chickpea-pita nachos) and foul mudammas (stewed fava beans) as well as scrambled eggs and omelets with Middle Eastern spices.
The shawarma bowls are popular, says Abuzer Jaradeh — with a choice of chicken, meat, potato and vegetarian, on rice with tomatoes, onions, pickles, purple cabbage, some kind of dressed salad, pita chips and a sauce as the basic building blocks, though each bowl is different. Other items on the menu not found at other Madison Middle Eastern restaurants include Jordanian coffee (a small, intense cup, thick like Turkish coffee, with lots of cardamom) and a Jerusalem salad (finely chopped parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, lemon, fresh mint, onions, olive oil, and tahini).
This is the Jaradehs’ and Albeik’s first restaurant. They moved from Chicago to Milwaukee two years ago, and came to Madison recently when the opportunity came up to buy the restaurant. They are also offering catering. The Nile is open 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Sat. and 8 a.m.- 6 p.m. Sun.
