Curl Book & Coffee Shop, named after the owner’s 12-year-old dog Curly, is what Beirut needs in such difficult times. The space welcomes visitors into a state of simple tranquility in which you feel like you’re walking into a world of creativity and coziness.

Curl’s menu’s simple, and almost every ingredient is sourced locally, as Nisrine Karazi says “why ship?” when she can reduce and support the local community. Everywhere you look you can notice that Curl embraces local Lebanese businesses, from the plant handmade-sewed baskets from Wootton to selling notebooks of my favorite recycled paper-notebooks brand of BTDT, and the newly added Non-Fiction book “The Quantum Leap” by Lebanese author Roger Bejjani.

My favorite drink is their Whimsical Latte, because it has seasonal natural spices in it as syrups are not added to the drinks at Curl Book & Coffee Shop. Even their beans are brought from a local distributor, Coffee Dimensions, whose coffee beans I personally enjoy. I also admire their variety in single-origin brews!

Curl’s wide selection of English books is curated by the owner herself. Nisrine brought the books from different sources, some local and others from direct agreements with publishers and wholesalers from the UK & US. Let me tell you this: locals are thirsty for new editions of such fiction books. The joyful news is that a wooden book birdhouse is displayed outside for anyone to take and drop books for free!

I visited Curl 3 times so far, and they only opened last Wednesday!