Amanuel “Aman” Gebremariam took a circuitous — and perilous — route to Tucson, where he is the chef and owner of the city’s two Zemam’s restaurants.
Gebremariam was 25 in 1979 when he fled his home in Asmara, Eritrea, Africa, to escape the civil war. He left his parents and three siblings behind. Walking for 17 days, he found a refugee camp in east Sudan.
Because he spoke English well, he was hired by the United Nations to work in the medical clinic, where he met his wife, Cindy, a UN volunteer from Cincinnati. They married in 1983, and spent the next six years traveling the world, working with the Peace Corps and UN.
In 1989, they came to the states. Mutual friends suggested they consider living in Tucson. They arrived in 1989.
Your life is like a Hollywood movie. How did you go from Africa to opening Zemam’s?
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“In my country, domestic work is mostly done by women, but I always loved to watch my mother cook. My sister would yell at me to get out of the kitchen, but I was fascinated by the smells and the way she mixed the spices. That was where I began to see that cooking is like chemistry; if you put the wrong amounts in, you don’t get the right taste.
“After I earned a business degree from the University of Arizona in 1991, I went to work for a company, but I didn’t like working in an office. I enjoyed cooking, and I remembered my mother’s kitchen, so I decided to open a little restaurant using her recipes. I named the restaurant Moma Zemam’s in tribute to her.”
What experience did you have to open a restaurant?
“My first job when we got back to the states was a dishwasher at McDonald’s. While working for the Peace Corps, I did work at the American Club in Mauritania (country in northwest Africa), but it was nothing like opening a restaurant. My wife said to me, what makes you think you can open a restaurant? But it was what I wanted to do.”
What is it you like most about cooking? About running a restaurant?
“I see people when they return empty plates, and how happy they are — there’s nothing like making people happy. But to do that, it requires a lot of hard work and dedication, and consistency. We use a lot of spices, and if we put too much of a spice in a dish, we hear about it from our customers.
“Owning a restaurant is a really, really hard job. There is no margin for error. I work six days a week, and on the seventh I am shopping for the next week. But I have learned that a good location, good food and good service makes you successful, and we have been around a long time.”
Two years ago you opened a second location. What led to that decision?
“At the time, there were plans to make Broadway a six-lane road, and that would have taken my property. So I found a property on Speedway and opened that about 2½ years ago, in advance of closing the Broadway location. Now the plans have changed, so I have two restaurants.”
What do you think attracts people in Tucson to your restaurant? You’re not the typical Tucson fare.
“We buy all of our ingredients locally, so it is Tucson. I think what makes us unique is how we prepare those ingredients.”
What is a favorite dish of yours and why?
“There is a dish I created which is called Yetakelt-Wae, a medley of fresh vegetables and potatoes. The other dish I created is a roasted cauliflower. Most people steam broccoli or cauliflower and just serve it with a little salt and pepper. The way I roast it and add spices, it tastes so different. There is so much more you can do with vegetables. It’s like chemistry.”
