OUR TEAM

mera kitchen collective is building a worker cooperative.

our business is rooted in the values of equity, solidarity, empowerment, and building community.  

Team Mera, June 2022. Photo Ⓒ Joanna Tillman.

Iman Alshehab

Chef Iman resettled in Baltimore in December 2016, by way of Jordan after fleeing her home in Damascus, Syria. Before the war made living her life in Syria impossible, Iman worked for years at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus. There, she specialized in traditional Syrian food made with both love and expert precision. 

While Iman arrived in America as a widow with no family to accompany her, her warm and generous spirit has drawn in many friends. She began bringing platters and platters of food over to her new neighbors, some who had never tasted Syrian cuisine before. Her love for food and hospitality is apparent - she cooks even the most simple dishes with love and care. Whether in the kitchen, farmers market, doctors office or Uber, you can often find Iman feeding the whole team — and anyone who happens to pass by.

Chef Iman is known for her mutubal (smoked eggplant dip), manoushe flatbreads, saffron infused charcoal smoked rice, kibbeh (finely ground meat stuffed with bulgur), grape leaves and chicken shawarma.

Emilienne Zongo

Chef Émilienne resettled in Baltimore from Burkina Faso and brings her West African flavors - and SPICE! - to the Mera Kitchen team. Chef Émilienne has three beautiful children -- who are the youngest members of the Mera team. If you’re lucky, her eldest daughter might be the one who takes your order. Émilienne said her favorite part of Mera is learning to cook foods from other countries; she has become an expert with Chef Iman's grape leaves and chicken kabobs!

When you have a chance to try her food, we love Émilienne’s grilled chicken yassa and her plantain rice bowls. Her refreshing ginger and hibiscus juices are a must have, and if you like spicy, she makes the best - and hottest - hot sauce we've ever tasted.

Nahomi Hurtarte

Bio coming soon!

Sara Ordoñez

Sara is from Olancho, Honduras. While Sara can quickly learn how to cook just about anything, she is the tamale queen. She makes the tamales at Mera from her mother’s recipe. Tamales remind her of Christmas and cooking together with her family. Sara has been living in Baltimore for 15 years and has three beautiful children. She has a passion for cooking and enjoys trying new foods and experiencing new flavors.

Rogelio Salvador de Jesus

Bio coming soon!

Inocencio Peralta

Inocencio is from Tlapa, a city in the mountain region of the Mexican state of Guerrero. His specialty is making salsa verde, tacos, and chicken tinga. He learned to cook when he moved to the US, 10 years ago. Food is a vehicle for Inocencio to transport a piece of Talpa with him in his new home in Baltimore.

Baltazar Salvador

Baltazar is from Guerrero, Mexico. Not only a line cook at Mera, Baltazar also plays trumpet in a mariachi band. He performs all over Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and most recently Times Square. He is favorite foods are pozole enchiladas. Pozole is a rich, brothy soup with pork, hominy, and red chiles. He also makes sure the music in the kitchen is always on point. He enjoys spending time with his family after work.

Alexus Snovitch

Alexus comes from NYC, Mid-Town aka Hell’s Kitchen. Food has always been her thing. Growing up with such a diverse background and diverse neighbors exposed her to all kinds of foods! Eventually, going to a hs for hospitality, she was destined for the industry. Working in the fastest pace city and then moving to Baltimore made work easy! She moved faster than most. Finding her passion in bartending. Similar to the love chefs have for their dishes, she enjoys giving people something good to put in their mouths! Mera is a place with growth and so much potential and it helps push her to where she wants to be but also allows her to give her all to help Mera grow! Without knowing this is where she wanted to be all along, it just had not existed yet!

Aishah Alfadhalah

Aisha immigrated to the US from Kuwait for school when she was eighteen, and came to Baltimore by way of Milwaukee and Portland, Oregon. Since moving, she has engaged with Baltimore’s refugee community as a mentor and interpreter. She often finds herself invited into the lives, homes - and stories - of individuals, and feels fortunate to see glimpses of their journeys to America and views on their current situations. 

For Aisha, stories are powerful in understanding the past and changing future narratives around refugees and immigrants. She believes that food is a collection of stories that are triggered and shaped through memories of feelings and current interactions of  one’s environment. 

Aisha is a cultural broker, bridging and bringing together different cultural backgrounds, and helping to amplify self-narratives. Aisha provides the vital link to refugee and immigrant community, ensuring that at every step of the way, Mera’s decisions reflect the actual needs of the community it serves. In addition to her roles with Mera, Aisha serves on the Baltimore’s Community Advisory Board for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

Aisha’s favorite food is Iranian bread made in a dive-in oven — but when she can’t find that, she loves to eat Chef Iman’s za’atar bread, because it reminds her of her grandma’s.

Emily Lerman

Emily came to Baltimore after working with Doctors Without Borders. She intended to stay for one year only but never left. She brings experience working in refugee and emergency contexts, including the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Haiti. She has seen the benefits of community-driven initiatives that emphasize empowerment and self-determination and how they build and sustain equitable communities. Such experiences provided the inspiration behind Mera.

Emily loves Baltimore and believes that by prioritizing democratically-run businesses, like worker-owned cooperatives that focus on ownership and building equity, we can begin to imagine a more just society. Within Mera, she is responsible for daily operations, finance, and development…and a lot of “quality control” testing in the kitchen. She can’t pick a favorite dish because that’s just not fair, but she will eat Iman’s pickles any time of day, even at 5am before the farmers market.

Emily loves walking into the kitchen to find people from five or six different countries working together, communicating through the shared act of cooking and creating meals that reflect their own stories.

Javier Salvador de Jesus

Bio coming soon!