ISLAMABAD: In 2009, Zaigham Haque was in a London cab on his way to dine at a top-rated restaurant when a friend joked that he should channel his childlike excitement and love of food into launching his own version of Paris’s famed Le Cordon Bleu.
Though they laughed at the idea at the time, Haque, a former accountant, said it was here that the seeds were first sown for Dubai’s School of Culinary and Finishing Arts (SCAFA), which he launched in 2011. After three years of offering a complete spectrum of courses for professionals and food enthusiasts in Dubai where Haque has lived for much of his adult life, he decided to take the institute home to Pakistan.
SCAFA Pakistan, which operates in Lahore’s bustling Gulberg area, has graduated roughly 120 people since it opened its doors in 2015, and added a casual dining cafe called Scafé Express and a 60-seat restaurant, Scafa Bistro. All three are housed in the same building, with the restaurants giving students the chance to fully understand and practice fine dining before they head out into the job market.
The dining experience, Haque said, is a prelude to the teaching program where students learn about international fine-dining and kitchen operations.
“The commitment was to operate the Pakistan school with the same standards as we were doing in Dubai, which is world class,” the SCAFA CEO said in an interview to Arab News.
Another motivation for opening the school was Haque’s belief that many high school students did not want to go the conventional route of university or pursue standard careers. Particularly in Pakistan, where parents push their kids into the fields of medicine, business or engineering, Haque felt there was a need to offer and celebrate viable alternatives to conventional job paths. His own daughter Alisha Haque was training to be a dolphin and mammal trainer before her father convinced her to join his culinary business.
“In Pakistan, we have opened an exemplary training institute, offering world class qualifications, and international careers to our graduating students,” Haque said. “There is first class faculty made up of international chefs splitting time between both our campuses.”
But it all comes with a hefty price tag. The professional apprenticeship program at the school, for example, costs over AED 83,000 or roughly Rs.3,464,948. Haque says the program is expensive because it meets international standards and has a unique, student-led approach: the chef instructors provide guidelines but leave plenty of room for students to practice, make mistakes and find their own solutions. The idea, Haque says, is to get students to think both critically and creatively.
“We give students a foundation that creates a different kind of chef,” he said.
Dubai-based institute helps cook up culinary careers in Lahore
Dubai-based institute helps cook up culinary careers in Lahore
- Zaigham Haque brought the School of Culinary and Finishing Arts to Pakistan’s cultural capital in 2015
- Says he opened SCAFA for the love of food and to offer alternatives to more conventional careers
Pakistan urges ‘time-bound and irreversible’ path to Palestinian statehood at UN
- Pakistan warns the Security Council Israeli settlement expansion has reached its highest level in the West Bank
- It says Islamabad backs sustained ceasefire, expanded humanitarian access, protection of UNRWA’s role in Gaza
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday called for a time-bound and irreversible political process leading to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, urging the international community to move beyond declarations and turn long-standing commitments into concrete action.
Addressing a Security Council briefing on the Middle East, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations said repeated diplomatic initiatives had underscored that the status quo was untenable and that only a credible political horizon, grounded in international law, could deliver durable peace.
His remarks came as the Security Council reviewed the implementation of Resolution 2334, which calls on Israel to halt settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territory.
Pakistan said recent diplomatic efforts — including a high-level conference in July and the General Assembly’s endorsement of the New York Declaration reaffirming the two-state framework — had sought to preserve the possibility of a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.
It said follow-up meetings at Sharm El-Sheikh, along with US-led initiatives under President Donald Trump aimed at halting the fighting, were intended to reopen a political process toward Palestinian statehood.
“A time-bound and irreversible political process, anchored in relevant UN resolutions must lead to the establishment of a sovereign, independent and contiguous State of Palestine on the basis of pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital,” Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told the council.
“It is high time to turn promises into action and speed up this process,” he added.
Ahmad said Pakistan backed Security Council Resolution 2803, which calls for efforts to sustain the ceasefire, expand aid access and restart a political track toward Palestinian statehood.
He said settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, had reached its highest levels since the United Nations began systematic monitoring, citing UN findings that more than 6,300 housing units were advanced during the reporting period.
Such actions, he said, had “no legal validity” under international law but continued to undermine the viability of the two-state solution.
Pakistan also defended the role of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), saying it remained indispensable for Palestinian refugees and must not be weakened by what it called unfounded criticism.
Ahmad condemned the storming of UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem earlier this month, calling it a violation of international law and the inviolability of UN premises, and urged full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza, along with the immediate start of reconstruction without annexation or forced displacement.
