When Ahmed Abdulkadir is not busy brokering peace deals in conflict zones, he’s busy making some of the best Somali flatbread in town at his family-run restaurant.

We made our way to his Safia Restaurant on a Wednesday evening with our new neighbours, a wonderful couple that revealed Ahmed happened to cater their wedding a few years ago. They assured us the food was going to be excellent. (Not that we felt otherwise—the restaurant has a near perfect rating on Google, and two readers wrote to us recently with high praise for the Somali restaurant.)

Paintings of village life in East Africa adorn the restaurant’s walls. There are a few tables to your left as you enter and a traditional floor seating area with cushions at the back. Our friends asked us if we’d like to eat in the back. We happily obliged. While the dinner crowd started trickling out around 7:30 p.m., Ahmed and his two servers stayed busy catering to a constant stream of customers flowing in to order wraps, sambuusas and other classic Somali dishes for takeout. Feeling guilty that we had seemingly ordered the last of the sambuusas, I made sure to cherish every bite.

Now, you’re probably wondering what I was on about with the conflict zones comment at the top of this piece. After a little prodding, Ahmed, who was quite humble about his past, acknowledged that he was an activist in Alberta prior to moving to Ontario. When I later googled him, I learned that he was a prominent leader of the Somali community in Edmonton. In 2018, he played a key role in the negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a separatist rebel group. He flew back to his home country for the first time since fleeing as a refugee in the early 1990s and bore witness to a historic peace agreement.

He then followed his sons to Ottawa, where they were attending Carleton University at the time. Around five years ago he decided to take the plunge and oversee the expansion of his sister’s west end Somali restaurant that shares the same name. With his 25 years of experience in the food business, it was not too much of an adjustment. The goal was simple—make authentic food that was relatable to people from all walks of life. So, five years ago, the family gave us a second Safia restaurant on St. Laurent Boulevard. The menu of the two locations are largely the same, with a few more offerings at the east end location, Ahmed told me.

“We did not want to make it fancy,” he said. “It’s food that everyone can relate to.”

As Somalia is a coastal nation, its food is a fusion of Indian, Arab and Italian flavours, Ahmed added. That’s why people from so many backgrounds can relate to the it. This was certainly true of our meal. We ordered the chicken suqaar platter, a beef suqaar with chapati, and our lovely neighbours ordered us four samosas to take home.

Ahmed was correct. The chicken suqaar resembled chunks of tandoori chicken, served on a bed rice with pickled onions and salad. Our first bites led to long oohs and ahhs. The boneless chunks of chicken of were spicy, tangy and had a nice aftertaste of cumin. But to me the real showstopper was the rice. Made by soaking the rice in a broth, it was rich, flavourful and complemented the chicken perfectly. My beef suqaar was served with a flaky chapati—a type of flatbread closely related to paratha of the Indian subcontinent. The chunks of meat were tender and salty. While very tasty, I couldn’t help constantly digging into the plate containing the chicken suqaar.

On our way home, I kept wishing I had had exposure to Somali food earlier in my life. We’re lucky to have purveyors of this incredible, complex and delicious cuisine in Ottawa. It’s quickly become one of my favourite cuisines. I’m sure it will become yours too.