Hardly had James unlocked the front door when the phone began to ring. "Table for six for lunch? But of course, Madame ... Table for eight tonight? With pleasure ... No sir, the menu today is tabbouleh and mulokhieh, but we'll be serving kafta mechwi* as always ... Yes, sir, of course we can provide a belly dancer..."
James Kassouf is perpetually harassed these days. He is manager of the Beirut Restaurant in London's chic Knightsbridge, and this summer his phone is forever ringing with the news that some Kuwaiti sheik or Saudi princess has just left Harrods and was last seen heading for the restaurant for coffee and mouhallabiya. Kassouf and his staff are caught smack in the middle of an Arab invasion that makes the drought-dry London streets look almost like Cairo.
The Arabs are everywhere, their tarbooshes and burnooses as ubiquitous as brollies in the rush-hour crowds. By day they can be found pressing three-deep against the counters at Selfridge's or Harrods, the women often swathed in black gowns and veils, the men in Arab robes topped by checked sports jackets. At sunset they parade along Hyde Park. Toward midnight they filter out of Mirabelle, the Hard Rock Cafe or other favored Mayfair restaurants to stroll over to one of their discotheques or gambling clubs.
London Tummy. After that it is back to the hotel for coffee, brewed to order in little brass pots right in the room. Indeed, the hotel itself may be Arab-owned: the Royal Kensington, the Park Tower and the fabled Dorchester have all been bought by Middle Eastern investors—the Dorchester for a cool $15.9 million. For those who are bothered by a touch of London tummy, help awaits at expensive Wellington Hospital in St. John's Wood, where the amenities include Arab interpreters and closed-circuit TV featuring Arab-language movies made in Cairo.
More than anything else, the strife in Lebanon is responsible for Britain's Arab influx. Most of the recent arrivals are vacationers from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, or temporary refugees from Beirut. In the past, rich sheiks from the desert states fled to the cool mountains of Lebanon for the summer; this year they went to England, only to meet an unprecedented heat wave. Many Beirutis use London as a haven for their families and a substitute financial capital while they continue to do business by jetting around the Middle East. "London was the next best thing," says one corporate director in exile. "When you leave your family here and go off on business, you can feel confident they won't be beaten up or robbed."
By the end of this year more than 370,000 Arab visitors will have passed through London, an increase of 77% over 1975. By conservative estimate, they will spend some $500 million in London's stores, restaurants, clubs and real estate agencies. Often paying in cash, Arab buyers have practically cornered the market in high-priced British real estate, swooping up castles, country manors and great town houses in one Arab grand salaam.