Latest news with #LevantineCuisine
New York Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Can a Restaurant Be Both Glamorous and Comforting? Cafe Zaffri Is.
There's an old term in Hollywood: a 'four-quadrant movie.' It describes a film that appeals to every demographic — men and women, young and old. A blockbuster like 'Finding Nemo,' 'Jurassic Park' or 'Wicked.' Allow me to introduce you to the four-quadrant restaurant. This is the place where you can take your parents, and where you can also host your birthday dinner. Where you can have a power lunch. Where you can take a picky eater. Where you can find a flaky croissant and a well-prepared steak. That restaurant is Cafe Zaffri, a majestic, marble-tiled home for Levantine cuisine that opened in February near Union Square. I have tested the restaurant — a soaring space with two dining rooms, one open and sun-soaked, the other dark and moody — with differing audiences, at various mealtimes. My friends and I have basked in the ivory atrium over crisp cigars of halloumi-esque jibneh dusted with so much lemon zest they taste like sunshine. When some British comrades complained to me that American restaurant food was too sweet, they experienced a change of heart over a simple lunch of skewers: silken ribbons of cabbage and pine nuts, slippery hunks of striped bass flickered with tart black lime powder, and grilled pork belly smeared with sticky date molasses. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
12-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
How to Make Leftovers Feel Like a Feast
When Salam Dakkak was growing up in Jordan, dinner didn't end when the plates were cleared. It simply transformed. Her mother would take whatever remained — a spinach stew, a lentil soup, even sautéed vegetables — and tear up old bread, reheat the dish, pour it on top and finish it all with a cool yogurt sauce and some fried nuts. 'It wasn't just leftovers,' Ms. Dakkak said. 'It was a brand-new meal.' Recipe: Eggplant Fatteh That meal had a name: fatteh. Long before appearing on restaurant menus or Instagram feeds, fatteh, from the Arabic verb fatta (to break or tear), was a tradition across Arab households, a generous layered dish that breathes new life into food. Today, Ms. Dakkak, 62, the chef-owner of Bait Maryam in Dubai, serves fatteh at her Levantine restaurant in the classic chickpea-and-yogurt style and in countless other interpretations — some she even helped pioneer. Msakhan, the Palestinian dish of roast chicken with sumac and onions, was, according to her, first served as fatteh in her restaurant. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
