Villa Clara restaurant review

It’s truly a family business,” says Mary Helene Gougeon, describing Villa Clara, a restaurant and boutique hotel in Mar Mkhayel she owns with her husband, Olivier Gougeon. With Olivier, a French chef, preparing the food for the venue, Mary Helene managing the hotel, and their two young children Clara and Patrick on the premises, her words ring true after even a short visit to Villa Clara. Gougeon first came to Beirut in the year 2000 to complete his civil service requirements in Lebanon. He loved the country, staying on after his service ended and developing several cuisine projects, including Downtown’s Aziz and Edde Yards in Jbeil souks. Still, Gougeon wanted to have his own venue serving traditional bourgeois French cuisine, and so Villa Clara came to be.“We chose Mar Mkhayel area because it still has the old Beirut feel of a real sense of community that I love,” says Mary