At Bubooza in Concord, Find Gravity-Defying Scoops of Traditional Lebanese Ice-Cream

It’s nerve-wracking holding a tall, pistachio-rolled ice-cream upside down, but the staff at Bubooza in Concord are adamant: it won’t fall.

That’s because Middle Eastern booza is more solid than gelato or ice-cream, and has a slightly chewy, stretchy texture. Which means that even though the milky-white, blossom-scented ashta flavour looks like a standard scoop, it can defy gravity. Abu Hassan, booza-maker and co-owner of Bubooza demonstrates.

Standing in the middle of the store, he holds a cone in each hand, smiling confidently as he flips them 180 degrees. The swirled tops are pointing at the ground, but the bright expression on his face never wavers. He knows his booza isn’t going anywhere.
“Arabic ice-cream is denser because we extract the air out by beating it,” Hassan tells Broadsheet. “Then we add sahlab, a resin that comes from the tubers of a Turkish orchid, which allows the ice-cream to stretch.”

Mastic, a resin from a Mediterranean tree, is also added for chewiness. Used for their textural properties, mastic and sahlab don’t impart much flavour – that’s up to a different group of traditional ingredients.

“Ashta is our flagship flavour,” says co-owner David Isaac, of the ingredient similar to clotted cream, which you’ll also find in knafeh. “We add orange blossom water and rosewater to the mixture too, which are common ingredients in Middle Eastern cooking, especially desserts. They add beautiful floral notes.”

Next to the booza display, where ashta and chocolate flavours sit side-by-side, there’s an ornate copper lid covering crushed roasted pistachios. Once pressed into the cone, the ashta booza is rolled in pistachios to finish a perfectly balanced, textural dessert: creamy, chewy and crunchy; sweet, floral and nutty.

The chocolate is served plain. It’s velvety, with a delicate cocoa bitterness that lingers. Eventually more flavours will be added, but Hassan is about quality over quantity. It took two years of experimentation before he was satisfied with these two flavours.
Hassan has been making sweets his whole life. “I remember going with my father to his shop in Lebanon, helping him make nuts, chocolates, confectionary and some ice-creams,” he says. “I loved making ice-cream – I started experimenting with recipes, throwing away so many batches until I finally perfected it. In 1973 I opened my first ice-cream shop, Originale.”

Hassan served generations of customers in that Tripoli store. “I witnessed young kids growing up eating our ice-creams and later on bringing their children and grandchildren. People used to line up in the street outside.”

Political crisis in Lebanon led Hassan and his wife to close Originale and join their daughter in Australia, but that wasn’t the end of booza-making. A years-long friendship prompted Isaac and Hassan to join forces, first with a series of pop-ups before opening a counter at Shareef’s Shawarma Social Club in Concord. It’s an upbeat, colourful space with tile and contemporary Middle Eastern design motifs. Eventually they’ll open a standalone location with more flavours.

“I think our booza is better than in Lebanon, partly thanks to high quality milk and reliable electricity and refrigeration,” Isaac says.

The shop is only a few weeks old, but it’s easy to imagine the generations of Australian families that will queue outside to sample Hassan’s latest flavour, which suits him just fine. “I wanted to bring classic ashta ice-cream to Sydney, bringing joy and happiness to the community.”

Bubooza at Shareef’s
61 Majors Bay Road, Concord

Hours:
Tue to Thu 11am–11pm
Fri & Sat 11am–midnight
Sun 11am–11pm

@buboozaicecream
@shareefsshawarma