Suman Ali Sayed

Chef & YouTuber, the 86 kitchen
toronto, canada

Hailing from the Arabian Gulf Island of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Suman’s passion to excel in culinary, learn other cultures & work ethos has her traveling to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Chile, and across Canada. She has worked for some of the best luxury hotels & restaurants in the world as a Chef.

She worked her way up from just an entry-level cook at a golf resort cafe where she grew up, eventually leading to a culinary scholarship to study in Jordan with Les Roches International School of HM.

Graduating with honors, she then spent a year with Fairmont Hotels.

Suman has called Canada home for several years and her work experience here has shaped her professional career. Canada’s embrace of cultural diversity has enabled her to share her love of Middle Eastern food beyond falafel and hummus. She is a frequent featured guest chef, fusing Canadian regional foods with a Bahraini flare.

Her work has been featured in “From the Wild”, a James Beard nominated docuseries where Suman cooks deer meat kebabs on spruce sticks over a firepit. This gave her widespread attention - from farmers in Alberta and Ontario which led to many collaboration projects.

During the pandemic, she hosted her very first pop-up in collaboration with Wild Meadows Farm, a family farm in SOuthern Ontario with a focus on regenerative farming.

Suman is on a mission to educate and share what Middle Eastern culture and food heritage is about, and how food transcends geography and cultural boundaries to bring people together.