Majdal Bakery brings Middle Eastern baked goods — and babka muffins — to Philly’s hottest food neighborhood

Queen Village denizens are lucky when it comes to food. It’s such a hotbed of restaurants and bars that The Inquirer has dubbed it Philly’s most happening food neighborhood not once, but twice. This year alone, it welcomed a supper club-style Italian BYOB, a straight-shooting corner bar, and a Kazakhstani-food specialist. Amidst that diverse field, Majdal Bakery — the latest entrant to Queen Village’s food scene — still manages to stand out.

Open Thursday through Sunday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 618 S. Fifth St., Majdal serves a gorgeous spread of sweet and savory Middle Eastern baked goods. Pair a babka muffin (or loaf) — either chocolate-cherry-hazelnut or tahini-maple-pecan — with a cup of Herman’s Coffee, or go for one of Majdal’s signature tarts. You could also easily make a full breakfast or lunch with offerings from Majdal’s savory lineup, from the flaky spinach-olive-cheese borek to hefty hand pie-esque fatayer stuffed with tangy sumac chicken and crisp-chewy safeha (flatbread) topped with Turkish eggs, labneh and za’atar, or caramelized onion, eggplant, and peppers.

Majdal is the brick-and-mortar manifestation of Kenan Rabah’s long-simmering dream to start his own business — a goal he’s had since his days studying at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts and restaurant management.

Rabah’s love of baking developed during a 2018 stint at High Street, which led him Lost Bread Co., Alex Bois’ whole-grain-driven bakery in Kensington. There, Rabah learned the ins and out of bread-making, from milling flour and mixing dough to shaping and baking loaves. “Working at Lost Bread was probably the best thing that could happen to me,” he said. “Those six years, what I learned there, if I wanted to learn the same things somewhere else, it would have taken me 20 years.”

By the time Rabah left Lost Bread, he had risen to head baker. “I was kind of setting myself up to have my own business,” Rabah said. “Alex was really sweet about it. He was like, ‘Make all the mistakes that you want now so that when you have your your space, you know what to expect.’”

That supportive streak continued when Rabah went part-time at Lost Bread earlier this year to launch Majdal with what he anticipated would be two years of pop-ups. After the first pop-up, at Riverwards Produce last February, he was inundated with messages from small businesses, including Queen Village boutique Bodie and Northern Liberties plant shop Stump, who were eager to host Rabah in their spaces. “The support that I’ve gotten from small businesses and bakers in Philly — amazing. I was blown away by it ... even [from] people you would think that I’m competing with,” Rabah said, citing encouragement he’s received from Bois, Emily Riddell at Machine Shop, and pop-up darling Saif Manna of Manna Bakery.

Majdal gained so much traction with Philly’s pastry-hungry customers that Rabah felt prepared to make the jump to brick-and-mortar much earlier than he originally expected. He signed the lease on a former ice cream store in October, though he’s been working with the landlord to outfit the space since July.

Rabah moved to Philly in 2015 from the Golan Heights, an Israeli-occupied territory near the southwest corner of Syria. “We don’t have a nationality, essentially. My nationality is ‘undefined,’” Rabah said of his homeland. (”Undefined” is the term listed on the 28-year-old’s travel documents.)

Majdal’s baked goods selection reflects much of what Rabah was raised eating or making, like the fatayer filled with cinnamon-laced shredded potatoes, or the faintly sweet talami, a round bread spiced with turmeric, anise, ginger and sesame. The bakery is named after the village he grew up in, Majdal Shams, a close-knit community in a picturesque setting.

“It’s all the way up in the mountains. The area is really, really famous for agriculture — apples and cherries are like the biggest crops there," Rabah said. “There’s a lot of snow, a lot of really good, lovely people.”

It may not be snowy, but Majdal Bakery is also filled with good, lovely people. Besides Rabah, there are two other Lost Bread alums — bakers Simon Printz and Lindsey Ohl — and Hannah Gellman working the retail counter and coffee service. A fourth baker is starting later this year, and Rabah’s partner is helping run the books.

“I didn’t really have to look [for staff],” Rabah said. “It’s just me and my friends, we did it together.”