The best Middle Eastern food in NYC, from Lebanese restaurants to meze and grills

This restaurant is authentically Persian yet inherently Brooklyn. The eatery’s name refers to the cloth that Iranians spread on the floor and cover with platters of food. But you won’t see any linens at this spot: The restaurant sports cement tables and cement floors with a white-painted brick wall. The cozy vibes arrive when chef-owner Nasim Alikhani’s food hits the table, offering a culinary crash course in Persian cuisine, highlighting many classic techniques and ingredients. 

Middle Eastern cuisine is having a moment in NYC, and for good reason: The bold, irresistible flavors of za’atar and harissa leave us salivating for more. Miss Ada is leading the way under chef Tomer Blechman. Whether concocting a swirl of whipped labneh or a bubbling pan of shakshuka, Blechman draws on his Israeli background for crowd-pleasers like baba ganoush and hummus while adding a creative touch (think eggplant dip with ginger aioli and sweet potato hummus).

This heralded Israeli pita shop in Chelsea Market is a key player in the renaissance of Middle Eastern cuisine in NYC. The menu is split up between in-a-pita and out-of-the-pita, though you're going to want to get a sampling of both (especially the whole roasted baby cauliflower).

Named after the Middle Eastern spice blend, this Arabian-French bistro showcases the family recipes of Lebanese home cook Salwa Fallous. Highlighting the flavors of the Levant and North Africa, Fallous offers dishes like lamb shank with Armagnac-prune sauce, Tunisian merguez couscous and Lebanon's national dish, kibbe kras (bulgur wheat with beef, onions and pine nuts). The 46-seat restaurant, outfitted with burgundy banquettes, exposed-brick walls and a five-stool bar, also offers organic wines and craft beers (Left Hand Milk Stout, Magic Hat #9).

This Greenwich Village restaurant specializes in its namesake, kubeh, a Middle Eastern dish that can either appear as a meat croquette or dumpling filled with meat. Here, it appears in the Kurdish style commonly served in Israel: round balls of dough made from bulgur wheat, chickpeas or rice filled with veggies, fish or meat and served in broth. Choose from a variety of fillings and broths to build your bowl of kubeh.

Though New York’s food scene may be the world’s most diverse, not every type of cuisine is well represented. Since 1998, Tanoreen—a cult destination in Bay Ridge—has been alone at the top above other Middle Eastern establishments, a standard bearer in a category that has few. Palestinian-born Rawia Bishara, who runs the restaurant with her daughter Jumana, prowls the dining room nightly, a maternal hostess generously handing out hugs, handshakes, and big party platters lavishly garnished in tomatoes, parsley and za’atar dust. Her cooking—Middle Eastern soul food, you might call it—is based on tradition but not enslaved by it. While many dishes are just like what her mother made, plenty of others chart their own course.

Persian dishes make you feel healthier just by looking at them: The cuisine relies on simple, fresh ingredients and lots of grilling—and you can sample it here in the form of flavorful kebabs. The standard lamb versions are available, but try the albaloo polo with jujeh instead: chunks of cornish hen marinated in lemon, grilled and served with basmati rice spiked with sour cherries. An appetizer of mirza ghasemi (a warm, smoky puree of tomato and eggplant) makes for an elegant, hopelessly addictive change from the usual baba ghanoush; the four sambuseh (fried samosalike dumplings) can be dipped in a fiery chutney.

One of the city’s hipper Middle Eastern restaurants, this lusty space is a welcome oasis on the western fringes of midtown. Flickering candles, a tiled open kitchen and a working stone oven offer a nice backdrop to the piquant, Pan–Middle Eastern cuisine. Standards like tsatsiki and hummus are well executed, but more inventive dishes, like the savory pastry cigars filled with sweetbreads, oyster mushrooms, parsley, preserved lemon and harissa, are more interesting.

The 300-seat box of a restaurant is stunning: In the main dining room, the honey-hued wood-paneled walls, pocked with windows and mirrors, create the impression of a giant kaleidoscope, and high ceilings and a plush adjacent lounge add to the feeling of grandeur. Ilili chooses an accessible entry point to haute Lebanese: an elegant take on the familiar. The falafel, for instance, has a crisp crust as manicured as a suburban lawn (and unfortunately, a pasty interior), topped by a dainty cylinder of chopped tomato; humble pita bread, instead of being just an afterthought, is unusually light, like an Indian puri; a beautiful chankleech cheese-and-tomato salad is chopped fine with scallions, thyme and oregano.

Expanding from a Smorgasburg stall to a brick-and-mortar, the Lebanese street-food vendor layers its namesake breakfast flatbread with savory toppings like akkawi cheese, za'atar spices and ground beef, or sweet additions like halawa (candied sesame paste) and Nutella.