Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream in Affton serves a bounty of baklava
Owners George and Esraa Simon call the restaurant “the first Eastern sweet shop in St. Louis.”
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
“When we can get our unique products in front of people, they buy,” says St. Louis native George Simon, a Lebanese-American who owns Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream in Affton with his wife, Esraa Simon, a refugee from Iraq. The couple calls Sedara “the first Eastern sweet shop in St. Louis.” In addition to such offerings as falafel and shawarma, it serves a dizzying array of baklava, 20 varieties at any one time, best enjoyed with a scoop of small-batch ice cream from Wisconsin’s Cedar Crest or Turkish sand coffee. Sedara uses ghee (clarified butter) and sugar-sweetened rosewater, or shira, to enhance the variety of nuts in its Iraqi and Turkish baklava. Pistachios are the most prevalent option, especially in warbat, a maw of phyllo that is stuffed with crunchy shira-sweetened pistachios. Incidentally, the name Sedara is derived from a type of men’s hat worn during the Ottoman period. We tip our cap to the Simons for bringing a Sedara to St. Louis.
Editor's Note: This article, titled "The Dish," opened the dining section of SLM's September issue.
