GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Trendily clad young men and women chat animatedly at a sidewalk cafe. A girl with bare tattooed arms parks her bike and joins the crowd. Such scenes are common from Barcelona to Berlin. But this is Gaziantep, a Turkish city less than an hour’s drive from Syria, where a brutal 3-year-old conflict still claims scores of lives every day.
Since opening its doors three months ago, the cafe, called Nihavent (Persian for the musical key G minor), has become a refuge for educated, secular Syrian youths traumatized by the war. “These kids are the forgotten face of Syria. We want to give them a sense of normalcy, a taste of home,” explained Yasser Birro, a former executive from Aleppo who launched Nihavent with two other partners. The menu offers an array of beautifully presented traditional dishes prepared by the all-Syrian staff at affordable prices.
