Some cities introduce themselves through monuments and museums, through citadels perched on hills and boulevards that stretch into the horizon. Erbil can do all of that, of course. But the city reveals its truest self somewhere far more modest—at the dining table, in the neighbourhoods where life moves without spectacle.

On that afternoon, I wasn’t looking for a culinary adventure. I wasn’t chasing a recommendation from a travel guide. I simply followed a friend.

Ibrahim—colleague, companion, and my interpreter of Erbil’s everyday world—looked at me and said, “Let’s have lunch at Habib.” No elaborate pitch. No poetic description of the menu. Just the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly where a city keeps its soul.

We drove into Iskan, one of those neighbourhoods where Erbil stops posing for photographs and simply exists. Traffic hummed, people negotiated their errands, and the city’s rhythm felt uncurated, unfiltered. Somewhere in that bustle stood Habib Restaurant, a place that doesn’t need a signboard to announce its importance. The crowd outside does that job.

Habib Kebap & Restaurant is not the kind of restaurant where you arrive, are shown to a table and wait patiently for a waiter to bring you a menu. It has its own choreography. It is a self-service restaurant, and the moment you enter, you understand why it is so popular.

The queue moved steadily, eyes scanning trays of chicken, meat, rice, and accompaniments. Plates filled quickly. People carried their lunch like trophies won after a small battle. And then came the part Ibrahim had warned me about: the search for a table.

We wandered through the crowded room like explorers navigating a maze. A chair looked empty—until its owner returned with soup. A table seemed free—until we noticed someone’s jacket claiming it. We moved left, then right, then paused, then laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Eventually, we found a corner. Two chairs. Enough space for two plates. Enough space for a memory.

The roasted chicken was the first thing that spoke to me. Crisp skin, tender meat, spices that warmed rather than shouted. Beside it lay Kurdish rice, fragrant and dotted with raisins—sweet bursts against savoury comfort. I had eaten raisin rice before, but never in a place where such combinations feel inevitable, almost ancestral.

There was soup—simple, warm, honest. There was salad—fresh, crisp, necessary. And then Ibrahim handed me the final key: Mastaw. Chilled. Tangy. Lightly salted. A yoghurt drink that doesn’t just accompany a meal—it completes it.

I found myself thinking about how traditional meals often achieve a balance that modern menus sometimes try very hard to manufacture. Nothing on the plate was excessive. The soup warmed. The chicken satisfied. The rice carried the flavours. The salad refreshed.

Everything on the plate had a role. Nothing tried too hard. Nothing demanded attention. The meal felt like a conversation where every participant knows when to speak and when to stay quiet.

As I ate, I realised something that every traveller eventually learns: Food is not just about taste. It is about context. About company. About the person who says, “Come with me. I know where we should eat.”

The most important ingredient in that lunch wasn’t the chicken or the rice. It was Ibrahim. He didn’t show me Erbil through its landmarks. He showed me Erbil through its lunch hour—through a crowded room, a queue, a maze of tables, a plate carried carefully through chaos, and a corner that became ours.

I have always believed that food is one of the most intimate ways of understanding a place. Architecture tells us what people built. Museums tell us what they preserved. History tells us what they remember. But food tells us how people live. At Habib, I saw that life in a plate of chicken and rice.

When I think of Erbil now, I know I will remember more than the grand sweep of the Citadel or the city’s modern avenues. I will remember smaller moments. The neighbourhood streets of Iskan. The bustle of lunchtime. The sound of plates and conversations. The brief uncertainty of wondering where we would sit. And Ibrahim, smiling, perfectly at home in a world that was new to me.

Cities rarely enter our memory through grand encounters. They slip in quietly, through ordinary moments that acquire meaning later. That afternoon at Habib was one such moment.

Sometimes the best way to discover a city is not to ask where its famous places are. Just ask a friend, “Where do you go for lunch?” And then follow him.