It’s a well-known fact that the food you eat is never just a simple meal you consume for the benefit of its nutritious value. Instead, food is the centrepiece of every celebration - big and small. It’s almost like food is the basis on which we build community, and that’s exactly why we take it so seriously.35-year-old Saudi baker Abdul Latif Alrashoudi, like many of us, grew up in a home where food was synonymous with love. “My mum used to work afternoons at her tailor shop, and she spent mornings preparing various foods in our kitchen,” Alrashoudi tells SceneNowSaudi. “I remember viewing that as such a joyful way to show love, so much so that I used to pretend to be sick to stay home from school and spend time with her in the kitchen.” Even at the young age of seven, Alrashoudi recalls his biggest curiosity being the kitchen - that, and travel, after hearing tales of his great uncle, who was the first Saudi Arabian to ever go to the United States.Many years later, Alrashoudi took a different path, studying medicine to become a surgeon, before realising that path was not where his heart was happiest. Instead, he combined his curiosity about the inner workings of the kitchen, and his intergenerational love for travel, to take up cooking more seriously.

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu Paris, Alrashoudi began taking odd jobs in the culinary industry. From breadmaker to pastry chef and even to restaurant manager, he tried his hand at various jobs, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could be doing something that meant more.“I often feel like Saudi is underrepresented artistically and culturally, and, to me, cuisine is the cornerstone of culture. Food has such a power, a soft power. So, I wanted to use what I learned to represent my culture, because people only have a stereotypical idea of what Saudi is,” Alrashoudi explains. “Besides, if I wanted to succeed as a chef, I had to make room for my own creativity. So I founded LÂM.”As both bakery and coffee shop, LÂM offers a range of the simple bakeries you often find in coffee shops, like cookies, cakes and muffins, only elevated. “The idea was to bring what I learned about French patisserie to these simple creations, to make them more gourmet, and then I also mixed in traditional Middle Eastern flavours for even more uniqueness,” Alrashoudi says.Unable to shake the surgeon inside him, Alrashoudi continued to study the science of baking after graduating culinary school. He was specifically invested in how various flavours interacted with one another, and the endless possibilities those little interactions created. “Through my study of flavour profiles, I developed a well-rounded knowledge about pairing, so I could create unusual recipes, like oatmeal date cookies, chocolate tahini loaves, tamarind and onion quiches, date cardamom cakes, and more.”In Alrashoudi’s eyes, the one factor that enabled him to build LÂM so successfully was his belief that this dream could come true. It is exactly that belief that he wants LÂM to represent to young people everywhere, especially young people reviving Saudi culture.