Leone caught the journalism bug in her final year of university. She worked part-time for local magazines to see if she really liked the craft. Soon she was able to “craft” a mean cup of coffee for her bosses, learning the art of stuffing envelopes on weekends. Many cups later, she moved into the world of broadcast television, first at BBC World then CNN International, where she’s now a correspondent. Her reporting has taken her from the Middle East to South Africa, China to the Arctic.

A Lebanese writer and artist who still believes in the Mediterranean sea as the ultimate lingua franca, Youmna Chlala grew up in Beirut, then LA and she is currently based in New York. Her artwork, which has been exhibited internationally, is an investigation of fate and architecture through fiction, video, sculpture and performance.

Having worked as an English teacher, a Naval officer, a Powerboat Tester and a magazine editor, Alex Smith is now in love with life as a photojournalist and writer. Specialising in people, places, machines and gastronomy, he happily roams the globe in search of things that make him smile. He lives and works aboard his beloved 60-foot boat in the historic English city of Bath, where he harbours secret plans to establish an artisan brewery.

Fiercely independent, courageous and with a witty sense of humour, Farah describes herself as a typical Aquarius woman who’s comfortable dancing outside the box but only so long as it’s in a pair of heels. A designer herself, she has worked with the likes of Ermanno Scervino, Georges Chakra and Roberto Cavalli. Now based in Istanbul, she is busy setting up her own company, Stitch, which will serve as a platform for designers and consultants alike.

Dana is a Palestinian-American who describes her father as a Sufi and her mother as fabulous. With alternating zeal and insouciance, Dana has since sought to reconcile the spiritual and empirical worlds. She’s currently working on a treatise, ‘The Possibilities of Art’, which includes disparate topics such as the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson, Walid Raad, her son’s morning greeting, the way her daughter looks in hats and Neapolitan pizza.

A Beiruti born and bred, Joseph has so far resisted the Lebanese obsession with all things four-wheeled. That’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy racing along twisty mountain roads, scaring goats, shepherds and the occasional foreign cyclist or, for that matter, that he hasn’t been known to take part in efforts to break the land speed record on the way up to Faraya for a slice of ‘saj baladi’. A fledgling writer, his work appears exclusively in Bespoke.

Anissa has written several award-winning cookbooks and has travelled extensively for her food encounters. When she worked as an art consultant, she shunned domesticity and only cooked to introduce her friends to Lebanese food or dishes made famous by superstar chefs. In the 1980s, the Troisgros brothers and Michel Guérard were her heroes. Now she prides herself on finding excellence outside the perceived establishment and has made food her profession, both writing about it and consulting for restaurants and cultural institutions.