This chef left Wichita 14 years ago. Now, he’s back and is about to open a new restaurant
He’s back.
Again.
Those who’ve lived and dined in Wichita since the 1990s will likely remember Youssef Youssef, the Lebanon-born chef who founded enduring restaurants like Le Monde, Marbella and Mediterranean Grill.
He’s been back and forth between Wichita and Beirut since first moving here in 1988, and Beirut is where he’s been since returning in 2007 to raise his young children. While there, he owned a chain of bakeries called Khabbaz Bakery.
But the economy in Lebanon has again taken a turn, and Youssef returned to Wichita in August.
Soon, he will do what he does: open a new eatery. Youssef has taken over the former Pie Five space at 2755 N. Maize Road, and sometime in March, he plans to open a new fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant he’ll call Sesame Mediterranean Kitchen.
It’ll be a fast-casual place where diners order their food at the counter and wait for it to be delivered to their tables. Youssef said he plans to serve both Turkish and Greek gyros, Lebanese shawarma, kebabs, his famous butter biscuits and fattoush salad. He’s credited with creating the fattoush recipe that includes chopped pickles and black olives that Le Monde at 602 N. West St. still serves today, even though that restaurant has long been under different ownership.
His new restaurant won’t serve alcohol, Youssef said. And he’s undecided about whether he’ll serve one of his other most famous signature dishes: a bone-in lamb shank. He’s not really going for anything that fancy, he said.
But he hopes to show Wichita all the techniques he’s picked up since he’s been gone.
“I have more experience in food and flavor now,” he said.
Youssef moved to Wichita in 1988 to study electrical engineering at Wichita State University. He financed his studies with a job at Cafe Chantilly, one of Latour founder Antoine Toubia’s first restaurants.
He discovered a passion for the restaurant business, and in 1994 he turned a former NuWay Cafe into Le Monde, a restaurant that endures today. He sold that two years later and turned a former Popeye’s building at 335 S. Armour (now Towne East Mall Drive) into Marbella Cafe. In 1999, he sold his interest in Marbella Cafe and went on to open several other Wichita restaurants, including Mediterranean Cafes on east Kellogg, on Tyler Road and in Bel Aire, as well as Kababji at 21st and Webb.
In 2002, he decided he wanted his three three American-born children to get a taste of life in his native Beirut. They moved back for four years, and Youssef ran a bakery specializing in inexpensive sandwiches and pizza. That bakery was destroyed in a bombing, and when civil war broke out in 2006, the family returned to Wichita. That’s when Youssef decided to open a new restaurant called Mediterranean Grill in the old Marbella spot.
But a year later, he decided again to return to Lebanon and left Mediterranean Grill to co-owner Mustafa Sawli. That restaurant is still open.
Over the past 14 years, Youssef Youssef opened six locations of his bakery in Lebanon. But Lebanon is now in an economic crisis, and its currency is collapsing. The environment is bad for everyone, Youssef said, especially business owners.
His three children are now grown, he said, so he decided it was time to return to Wichita.
Youssef said he feels good about the location of his new building, which is in the New Market Square area.
“It seems to be a good traffic area,” he said. “And I started my career on the west side.”
I’ll keep you posted on an opening day for Sesame Mediterranean Kitchen.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 5:01 AM.
.jpg)