Seven Bites
Food, spices, and culture - designed into
extraordinary everyday experiences
About Me
I am Arwa Abonomai, a culinary designer and food entrepreneur from Saudi Arabia, based in Lisbon, Portugal. Inspired by Middle Eastern culinary traditions and shaped by international experience, I explore how food and spices can create connection, meaning, and ventures that honor heritage while meeting the needs of daily life. My work is grounded in culinary design, design thinking, and entrepreneurial practice.
What I Do
Through Middle Eastern spices and recipes, I translate traditional practices into products and experiences designed for everyday use, testing how heritage can be carried forward through viable, scalable food ventures.
How I Work
My work is hands-on and practice-based. I develop ideas through cooking, teaching, and community gatherings, testing and refining concepts through real experiences with real people. Every project follows a design process that values iteration, feedback, and learning. I use these insights to build ventures that balance cultural authenticity with commercial viability. My work increasingly explores how these formats can be documented, refined, and adapted across contexts without losing their cultural integrity.
My Impact
I aim to create food ventures that honor cultural roots while building something sustainable and scalable. My goal is to show how traditional food knowledge can thrive in the modern world through delicious, nourishing food that supports wellbeing, cultural continuity, and everyday capability. This work empowers communities while creating pathways for cultural exchange and meaningful business growth.
Products
Handcrafted nourishment from my kitchen to yours
Signature Bone Broth
My flagship bone broth, made with 20+ organic ingredients and simmered for 24 hours to extract deep flavor and nourishment.
Explore
Fermented Vegetables
A hand-crafted mix of traditionally fermented vegetables, created to support gut health, enhance vitality, and natural wellbeing.
Explore
Middle Eastern Spices
A hand-blended collection of 5 authentic Middle Eastern spices, freshly ground and balanced. Includes 5 signature recipes to get you started.
ExplorePurpose
To support women and their families in building confidence, creativity,
presence, and entrepreneurial capability through everyday cooking with spices.
Sustainability by Design
Seven Bites is developed with sustainability as a design principle. I work with seasonal ingredients and ethically sourced Middle Eastern spices, prioritising transparent supply chains, responsible farming, and long-term producer relationships. Decisions around sourcing, production, and scale balance environmental care, cultural integrity, and economic viability.
Cooking as Practice
Cooking is approached as an intentional, experiential practice. Attention to process, simplicity, and the thoughtful use of spices shapes both preparation and experience, inviting presence, care, and reflection into everyday cooking and shared meals.
Everyday Nourishment
Food is prepared using high-quality ingredients and carefully selected Middle Eastern spices to support everyday wellbeing and vitality. Nourishment is understood as both physical and experiential, making good food accessible, meaningful, and sustainable in daily life.
Learning Through Food
Small-scale, hands-on food experiences explore learning, presence, and connection, with Middle Eastern spices as a central medium. Developed in intimate settings, the format allows close attention to process, interaction, and shared experience over time.
The sessions draw on Middle Eastern spice traditions alongside seasonal Mediterranean ingredients, exploring how spice knowledge can be translated across contexts while preserving cultural authenticity and respect for origin.
Each experience functions as a sensory learning environment, engaging participants through spices, techniques, and mindful preparation. Spices become tools for learning, storytelling, and awareness rather than simply flavour.
Rather than a traditional cooking class, these gatherings explore how shared, spice-led food practices can support learning, community, and connection through active participation.
The experiences position food and spices not only as content, but as a medium for understanding how culturally rooted practices can be designed, facilitated, and scaled with care.
Participants engage with ingredients, methods, and cultural stories through sensory experience, building practical skills alongside understanding of tradition and context.
This approach creates space for curiosity, experimentation, and connection to emerge through preparing and sharing food.
Community Experiences
Reflections on spices, products, and shared cooking experiences.
"Arwa has a rare gift for helping women reconnect with femininity and confidence through cooking. I'm grateful to have learned from you."
Anna
Facilitator & Coach
The Arwa Way: Cooking with Spice, Heritage, and Love
How herbs, spices, and care awaken tradition.
Chef Arwa Abonomai's debut cookbook invites readers on a sensory journey through flavour, culture, and imagination. Rooted in Middle Eastern culinary heritage, the book explores how spices carry history, care, and meaning, shaping not only taste but the way food is experienced and shared.
The book presents 20 dishes from around the world, first in their authentic local form, then reinterpreted the Arwa way through carefully composed blends of Middle Eastern herbs and spices. Each recipe shows how traditional flavours can be respectfully translated across cultures while gaining new depth and expression.
From Portuguese grilled fish and Italian bolognese to Indian curries and Saudi comfort dishes, each chapter demonstrates how intention, creativity, and spice can transform familiar meals into something both grounded and surprising.
Where Middle Eastern heritage meets the feeling of home, The Arwa Way shows how cooking with spice, care, and love can turn everyday food into an experience of connection, nourishment, and belonging.
Continuing the Journey...
Seven Bites evolves through ongoing exploration of spices, recipes, experiences, and reflections that examine how food can support nourishment, connection, and everyday care.