Queens

Moroccan Bites by Siham: Tiny Kitchen, Big Flavor

Moroccan cuisine, at least items like couscous and harissa, can today be found in nearly any supermarket. But New York, with all its culinary diversity, has never had a real Moroccan restaurant scene. The recently launched Moroccan Bites by Siham goes a long way toward filling that void. “[When I moved to New York] I would have loved to have a restaurant that I could be proud of and tell people about, but sadly, there was not,” says Rabat-born Redouan Lazrek, the restaurant’s co-owner and husband of Siham Bourhane, the chef.

Queens

Mount Everest Deli: The Momo Bodega

Mount Everest Deli may appear, to many of its customers, interchangeable with its neighbors – Globe Smoke & Convenience, Seneca Deli Corp., or any of the dozens of Ridgewood bodegas that are instantly familiar to any New Yorker. Passersby on Myrtle Avenue dash in for a pack of cigarettes, a tube of off-brand super glue, or a turkey bacon-egg-and-cheese on a roll. But inhale deeply while shopping there and you’ll smell masala. Peek behind the deli counter and you’ll see momos – Himalayan dumplings – tumbling onto the griddle. Mount Everest isn’t just a corner store. It’s a distinctive, tradition-bending urban Nepalese restaurant.

Queens

John’s Pizzeria: A Slice of Nostalgia

The eye-catching vintage sign proclaims: “ohn’s Pizzeria.” The letters in “Pizzeria” are in the bold carnivalesque font that decorates many decades-old slice joints in New York. As for “ohn’s,” it’s missing a one-of-a-kind flourishing cursive capital letter. “The J fell off,” says Susan Bagali, while ladling sauce onto a Sicilian pie behind the counter. “I called three companies and none of them could fix it right. I don’t wanna change it at all.” John’s Pizzeria’s unchanged appearance is exactly what first caught our eye while the corner restaurant was shuttered during the entire Covid-19 pandemic – for good, we worried.

Queens

Carmel Grocery: The Israeli Zabar’s

Few places in New York are home to such a diverse cross section of the Jewish diaspora as Forest Hills, especially the broad stretch of 108th Street tucked behind the imposing apartment blocks that abut Queens Boulevard. If you stand in front of Carmel Grocery, a plain-looking shop at the heart of the modest business district, you’re likely to hear Hebrew, Bukhori, Russian, Georgian and Yiddish along with the thick Queens accents of the neighborhood’s longtime Ashkenazi Americans. And many of the voices you hear are probably on their way into the grocery, lured by the smell of freshly roasted coffee.

Queens

Istria Sport Club: Authentic Adriatic

“Did someone send you?” you might be asked, somewhat jarringly, if you find your way down the basement stairs and past the life-sized goat statue that marks the entrance to the Istria Sport Club. The restaurant, on a nondescript stretch of Astoria Boulevard, doesn’t advertise its presence. Its brick storefront looks more like an office or a private social club, which, at least nominally, it is. But any fears that we had stumbled into the wrong place were soon assuaged. “First time here? I’ll take care of you,” said Zlatko Ranic, who manages the restaurant attached to the 64-year-old soccer club. We soon felt right at home.

Queens

Chaikhana Sem Sorok: Silk Road Station

Chaikhana Sem Sorok, a newly opened little café just off the Central Asian thoroughfare of 63rd Drive in Rego Park, proves more than anywhere else that all cuisines are fusion cuisines, if you go back far enough. Every day but Saturday – the Sabbath – loaves of round, crusty bread called non or lepyoshka emerge from the restaurant’s towering brick tanur oven. They’re distinctly Uzbek, but share Persian roots with the naan of the Indian subcontinent. Meanwhile, samsas, similar to samosas, bake while clinging to the sides of another tile tanur, which was built in Samarkand and shipped to Rego Park. Filled with onions and either lamb, pumpkin or beef, and lightly charred like a Neapolitan pizza, they are Chaikhana’s big draw.

Queens

Djerdan Burek: Eyes on the Pies

Ask any former resident of the Balkans now living in New York where they buy the flaky, savory phyllo pie known as burek, and they may very well direct you to Djerdan Burek in Astoria. Burek (also known as börek) is a staple eaten in many forms throughout the regions that once formed the Ottoman Empire. In New York City, though, most purveyors of burek come from Albania and Bosnia, and if you’ve ever ordered a slice of burek at one of the many Albanian-run pizzerias in the Tri-State area, there’s a good chance it was baked by Djerdan as well. Their Queens storefront is a homey sit-down eatery doling out plates of meaty stuffed cabbage and grilled Balkan sausages, but Djerdan is especially well-known among immigrants from former Yugoslavia for being the only Balkan burek factory in the United States.