Dara Ghosheh

Biography

Dara Ghosheh always had a passion for the kitchen that began early in her childhood. Cookies and ice-cream played an important role growing up as she would always bake cookies and distribute them to her neighbors, and every Thursday, a young Dara and her father had a tradition of going out for ice-cream. So the sweet confection, along with baking, hold a very dear place in her heart.

 Originally Palestinian, Dara grew up in Jeddah and summered in Jordan. She graduated in 2005 from the British IG system, and in 2010 she received a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from the American University in Cairo, with a specialization in Integrated Marketing Communication. 

 After graduating, Dara had a difficult time finding employment as the Revolution was slowly taking shape and companies were reluctant to make new hires in marketing. After two years of job searches that proved futile, Dara joined the marketing department of a start-up, and soon after was hired by a corporation to fill a position in its CSR department. 

 Her passion for baking and for ice-cream never subsided throughout the years, and in 2014, Dara enrolled in a course titled, How to Make Gelato at Carpigiani University, in Bologne, Italy.  After spending a month of learning the basics of gelato making, Dara was encouraged by her husband to follow her passion, and so she began studying the concept of creating an ice-cream parlor that was a destination targeted by customers, and not just a spontaneous purchase. 

 Dara spent a year and a half developing flavors, testing them, and creating something that combined the best of gelato and ice-cream together. She then spent the years between 2013 and 2016 testing flavors on a household machine, while she was living between Cairo and Amsterdam. In May of 2017, Dara had her first child, and in June, she acquired her first commercial machine. That was when she began developing recipes for her own ice-cream shop.

 The first branch of Dara’s Ice-cream opened at Galleria 40 in Sheikh Zayed in 2018, the second opened in 2019 at White by The Waterway in Fifth Settlement, the third is a seasonal branch in the North Coast. Store expansions across Cairo including Zamalek, Maadi and New Cairo, and the North Coast, followed suit soon after for a total of 10 functional stores in the summer of 2022. Dara still retains her secret recipes, and combines all the ice-cream flavors herself, she believes in remaining hands-on because she continues to regard her work not as a job, but as a passion that she was able to turn into a career.