LIFESTYLE

Through Sahtein Club, Ty Gaskins Brings Beirut to Every Table

Rim Nsouli

28-October-2025

Through Sahtein Club, Ty Gaskins Brings Beirut to Every Table

They say home is where the heart is. But what if home isn’t just a place — what if it’s a feeling you can carry with you, wherever you go?

For Ty Gaskins, an American journalist based in Paris, that feeling found him in Lebanon. When he first traveled there in May 2025, he didn’t yet know that the country would change him — that its rhythm, warmth, and spirit of togetherness would become part of his own story, and that he would find himself back there five more times the same year.

“I’d heard about how amazing Lebanon is for years through friends,” Ty recalls. “But experiencing it — the generosity, the resilience, the way people come together — taught me something essential about community.”

Lebanon, he says, has been a constant thread in his life over the past few years. “Though I’m an American living in Paris, my connection runs through friends, through love, through culture, and through the kind of hospitality and conversation that leave a mark long after the moment passes. Beirut, for me, is less a geography than an energy: cosmopolitan and layered, raw and beautiful, resilient and restless.”

Moved by that realization, Ty wanted to create something that could honor the spirit of Lebanon while allowing him to carry it with him — wherever life and work might take him. That seed grew into Sahtein, a dinner series inspired by the culture of hospitality and shared connection that defines Lebanese life.

“The word Sahtein has no direct translation,” he explains. “Said before a meal, it’s not just ‘enjoy’ or ‘bon appétit’ — it’s a wish for abundance, for nourishment, for connection. That depth is the point. The word, like the dinners, is meant to be more than what it seems.”

The first gathering was hosted in Beirut, the same city that inspired the concept, at Liza in Ashrafieh, and brought together friends and members of the creative community that Ty belongs to. However, what began as a single intimate dinner quickly grew into something bigger, into a way to preserve and plant the spirit of Lebanon into new contexts, as a reminder that culture thrives when shared with openness and care.

“What I’m trying to create is intentional gathering,” he says. “Places where people sit, talk, and let the conversation move at its own pace. In a world defined by speed and transaction, I wanted to slow things down — to use the act of coming together as the framework for community.”

In Paris, that same spirit unfolded in a candlelit setting. Last week, Ty hosted the second Sahtein Dinner, and this time he chose the city he lives in. It was held in the storied Place Vendome, but Lebanon was also present that night as the Lebanese startup coffee brand DAYS and cider brand Tiny Moon, brought a touch of Beirut’s vibrant energy, helping infuse the night with the familiar energy to the heart of the French capital.

As Sahtein continues to grow, Ty is already dreaming of its next destination — a city that, like Beirut and Paris, celebrates diversity, creativity, and the art of gathering.

“Each dinner is a way to honor what Lebanon has given me,” he says. “It’s our reminder that culture endures through how we connect, how we share, and how we allow traditions to evolve.”