Durkhanai Ayubi (BScMedChem, BSc(Hons) ’07) is a dynamic presence, recognised in 2022 as one of South Australia’s notable 40-Under-40 entrepreneurs for being a successful author, noted food industry identity through her family’s celebrated Parwana restaurant, and social justice advocate – yet her path began from an unlikely starting place, studying Chemistry at Flinders University.
“I feel like I’ve lived many lives – but now, when I look back, I can understand that it’s all connected, without me having consciously known it at the time,” she explains. “Actually, I see links: Chemistry is fundamental to food, and food to community. It’s a throughline of transformation and connectivity.”
While she didn’t pursue a life in science, Durkhanai’s skill set – especially her research and writing skills developed during her Honours studies – guided her initial professional path into public policy and Federal Government communications that took her to Canberra and Melbourne for seven years.
“Being at Flinders is a milestone in my life that I look back on with great warmth – a time of formative learning experiences for me and stepping stone into a bigger world. Most of all, I learnt the importance of interrogation and thinking, and something that has stayed with me in all I apply myself to – which is starting from the smallest molecular building blocks and building out into a greater reality.”
Central to this world has been Parwana, the Torrensville restaurant established in 2009 by her Afghan parents Zelmai and Farida Ayubi, who came to Adelaide with their four daughters as refugees in 1987, fleeing a war-torn country in crisis.
The restaurant’s enduring success has elevated local respect and affection for traditional Afghan food, and led Durkhanai to write Parwana: Recipes and stories from an Afghan kitchen, a book that embraces personal stories and observations in tandem with family recipes, and has enjoyed international success.
In time, the restaurant expanded to include two beloved offshoot eateries – Kutchi Deli Parwana in Adelaide (which ran for nine years, from 2014 to 2022), and a second Kutchi Deli Parwana kitchen at The Hub in Flinders University, which served a lunch menu from 2016 to 2020.
“We’ve changed lives with eggplant and dumplings,” quips Durkhanai.
Durkhanai’s decision to catalogue her observations through her family’s epic food journey, embracing culture, family tradition and the translated migrant experience, has enabled her to connect to the histories of her homeland through food.
“As a migrant, I’ve always occupied a liminal space and been an observer, and in time I learned that food and the expanse it holds, provides me with a language that helps me process who I am,” she says.
“Expressing these stories serves to provide a bridge between cultures. I’m not just writing about food, but I’m creating and offering a different language around how we see ourselves in these most challenging of times globally. At our core, we share a universality which has been eroded through narratives of dominance and exclusion, so food and food stories are my way of inviting a return to the interconnection that makes us.”
Part of this universal understanding includes providing assistance for those in need – and Durkhanai became mobilised to motivate others in a time of crisis. She was a key figure in driving Australian efforts to raise more than $180,000 for Afghans affected by the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban regime in 2021.
She is currently committing time to promote her second book – She Who Tastes, Knows: A memoir of food, exile and awakening. It follows a more personal story, laced with social commentary and observations while also weaving her own ancestral remembrance and love of food into the narrative.
Through this literary platform, she also speaks in a forthright voice about social equity – both on the page and from the stage, at leading writers’ festivals and other public forums.
“I feel very privileged that I am doing what I love, and that I can share my books to shine clear light on the many aspects of my Afghan life and our contemporary world that are so often discarded and purposely told in fragmented and narrowed ways. Instead, I lead with my inherited abundance of ingredients, histories, rituals and ways – and embrace our complexity, nuance and capacity to reconcile through loss and grief. Far from peripheral, these are fundamental learnings to share in a world navigating conflict and challenges on many fronts,” she says.
“To truly understand things, we need to know them. We need to taste them. And I want to invite every reader to share this, to make the message inclusive rather than exclusive. It’s the language I use to explain that while our modern world can feel so disjointed, there are connections just under the surface, waiting to bloom.”
Durkhanai believes her future commitments will continue to weave together all these myriad threads, which are central to her life.
“While I’ve been travelling down so many paths, I’ve learned to immerse myself completely at any given moment. So, I’m delving deeper into what fascinates me the most, following my passions. As I go, what’s important to me is not only that I get to share what I know, but that I also am constantly learning – from all those who I encounter, and nature around us.”
Durkhanai Ayubi has been awarded a 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award for her distinguished contribution to hospitality and literature, celebrating the rich cultural heritage of Afghanistan & working for greater narrative diversity, through food and storytelling.