Early memories of food can often be the catalyst for a life in kitchens. Helping parents bake cakes or prepare dinners is the starting point for many chefs, but for Mursal Saiq, things were a little different. Growing up amid the Afghan Civil War and Taliban rule, Mursal blocked out much of the trauma of those early years.

One food memory that lingers is eating fresh, juicy peaches with her family. But with a father on active duty during the Afghan Civil War of the early nineties, her more prominent memories are less involved with food and more with exile.

‘I’m writing a book,’ Saiq begins, ‘and it’ll open with this recurring line I’ve used so many times: “I was born in the 1990s civil war, in Kabul, Afghanistan”. The plan was for us to leave when I was five or six. We hoped to “pop to India” and just wait out the war. We ended up in Mumbai – then called Bombay – with my uncle who was in Bollywood and ended up living there for a few years.’

India became a source of creative inspiration, its rich food and spices playing a prominent role in developing Mursal's awareness of flavour. ‘So many of my flavour profiles come from India. I look now at things like saag aloo, cardamom sugar, kulfi, these sweets that I grew up with – it’s a huge part of me.’

Arriving in the UK aged just seven, Mursal and her mother were separated from her father and sisters. ‘I remember I was able to enter the UK and they weren’t. It was the last I saw of them for many years, literally going through the British border and waving them goodbye.’

Despite the pain of family separation, a young Mursal was enamoured with the welcome she and her mother received.

‘It was as if the Queen herself had opened up this home for us, it was quite magical. The Home Office threw a welcome party for refugees and asylum seekers. I call myself “British Afghan” because this country took me in. If a nation gives respect and welcome to an individual, then that person can grow and flourish. I’m proof.’

London wasn't always easy, however. While the diaspora communities of north London were close-knit, school was another story.

‘When I was younger everyone had sandwiches for packed lunch and I would have a home-cooked curry. [Looking back] I was really growing up between two worlds and I remember, all I ever wanted were those little chocolate animal biscuits.’

Returning to Afghanistan for holidays, Mursal recalls the hawkers selling fruit and vegetables from carts and the women who would wake early to prepare breakfast for their families. ‘There’s just something about Afghanistan food and food culture that’s so deep seated in me.’

It was in London, working in the earliest days of Street Feast, that the idea of food as a career really started to take hold. After studying history and political philosophy at Goldsmiths and UCL, Mursal worked as an archivist at the British Museum by day and at the burgeoning street food market during evenings and weekends.

Learning from Jonathan Downey of Street Feast and David Carter of Smokestak gave her a grounding in barbecue cookery, but also in what it takes to run a successful food business. Yet there was one persistent problem: ‘None of my family and friends could eat it.’

‘We'd launched in the heart of where I went to school – Clapton Girls – and I invited my friends to Street Feast just as we started doing food. My friends and family got in and they all wanted Smokestak, but nothing was halal, so they couldn't eat anything. This was Hackney, and we're all from Hackney, but my friends couldn't access it.’

It was this experience that inspired Mursal to create something different: a barbecue concept where people from different backgrounds could come together around the same table.

The earliest plans for Cue Point were ambitious, and not without their setbacks. Mursal recalls initially attempting to establish the business in Bologna, Italy, where an unlikely encounter with the local Mafia eventually prompted a return to London.

Back in the UK, and with help from David Carter, the team assembled a working smoker from old parts. Cue Point was born, bringing together Afghan flavours, Texan barbecue techniques and a commitment to making the experience accessible to everyone.

Founded with chef Joshua Moroney, Cue Point became known for its halal-friendly approach to barbecue, combining slow-smoked meats with the flavours and recipes of Mursal's Afghan heritage. But the concept quickly became about more than cooking.

‘We found that Cue Point started to transform the people I met. It's a space for people like me who don't fully belong here, or fully belong there, so where do we go? Cue Point. We started to attract everyone that felt between two places.’

For Mursal, being inclusive is the best way to bring people together. She has always wanted to create spaces where frank, sometimes challenging conversations can take place between people who might otherwise never meet.

‘It means that “Sarah” and “Layla” can sit down together in the same restaurant and have a conversation about their differences, because how else do you do that if you're never in the same space?’

After a decade of pop-ups, residencies, festivals and international collaborations, Cue Point opened its first permanent home in April 2026, taking over The Garden Bar on Bramley Road in west London.

The Garden Bar Grill and Smokehouse by Cue Point brings together the Afghan flavours of Mursal's childhood and Joshua's expertise in Texan barbecue, with live-fire cooking at the heart of the restaurant.

The menu features dishes such as oak-smoked wagyu brisket with Texas naan and saffron butter, lamb shank with Kabuli pilau and black lime chicken, bringing together British produce, Afghan spices and American smoking techniques.

With a spacious garden, dedicated smokers and an open-fire grill, the restaurant represents the culmination of ten years of hard work. More importantly, it provides a permanent home for the community Mursal has spent her career building.

Mursal's journey is one of defiance, knowledge and the unexpected. She recalls senior figures in the food world telling her to ‘stop trying to mix race and heritage with food’. Yet Cue Point, and much of her consultancy work across London's hospitality industry, remains deeply personal and inseparable from her own experiences. Put simply, ‘food, people and diversity go together whether you like it or not.’

Her work has taken her beyond east London, using food to encourage conversations around identity, prejudice and belonging.

‘I go to Marlow and St Albans and go on stage and give everyone halal food. In these spaces you have these people who perhaps once were prejudiced and you literally break bread with people and you realise all of those things are constructs. How do we break past that? It's with compassion, and food.’

Mursal has also spoken about her ambition to write a book preserving the recipes, memories and stories of Afghanistan, combining her family's culinary heritage with her own extraordinary journey.

‘With everything going on in Afghanistan, I feel this sense of urgency to get my mother's and father's stories and recipes out somewhere in the world. It'll be this plethora of recipes I never want to be lost, [combined with] history and my story.’

From Kabul to Mumbai, London and beyond, Mursal's cooking reflects a life spent moving between cultures and finding ways to bring them together. Whether through her restaurant, consultancy or advocacy, she continues to challenge the idea that food and identity can ever be separated.

‘Ultimately, I want people to understand that it's ok to be from two or more places – you can still find a home.’