New York City / Halal
Best Halal Restaurants
in NYC
Where the deals are real, where the certificate is posted, and which price you found online is a delivery markup.
Jade and Top Thai open their halal happy hours at noon — only 3 of these 14 spots discount anything at all
- 14 verified spots
- 3 real happy hours
- drafts from $3
- open till 5am
The best halal restaurants in NYC for an actual deal are Jade Eatery & Lounge in Forest Hills ($9 cocktails and $3 drafts, noon–7pm every day), Top Thai on Carmine Street ($9 cocktails, $5 drafts, 11:30am–7pm daily) and Nur Thai in Astoria, which is alcohol-free and runs a mocktail happy hour. That is the entire list of halal happy hours we could verify in five boroughs — three. Everything else here earns its place on price rather than a discount: a $43 prix fixe, two BYOB rooms built for groups, and four carts where the number you found online is almost certainly a delivery markup. We say which is which, and we list what we got wrong.
The short version
- Best dealJade Eatery & Lounge — $9 cocktails, $3 drafts and house wine, noon–7pm every day, bar and lounge only.
- Best valueTop Thai — $9 cocktails and $5 drafts in the West Village, from 11:30am. Same drinks are $19 after 7.
- Best dry optionNur Thai — Zabiha-certified, zero-proof bar, and a mocktail happy hour they don’t publish the terms of.
- Best cookingTanoreen — Michelin Bib Gourmand in Bay Ridge. Half portions noon–4pm; pay cash to skip the 4% card fee.
- Best cartKing of Falafel & Shawarma — 2010 Vendy winner, and the only cart here publishing real counter prices.
- Best at 3amSammy’s Halal is open 24 hours; Adel’s runs to 4–5am but doesn’t open until 6pm.
At a glance
Sorted by section, strongest deal first. The number in front of each venue matches its pin on the map.
| Where | The deal | Days | Window | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jade Eatery & Lounge | $9 cocktails, $3 drafts and house wine, $5–$7 bites | Daily | 12–7pm | $$$ |
| Top Thai | $9 cocktails, $5 drafts, $9 wine and wells | Daily | 11:30am–7pm | $$$ |
| Nur Thai | Mocktail + apps happy hour, discount not published | Ask | Not published | $$$ |
| Junoon | $43 two-course / $49 three-course Prestige lunch | Fri–Sun | 11:45am–2:30pm | $$$ |
| Tanoreen | Half portions 12–4pm; ~4% cash discount | Tue–Sun | 12–4pm | $$$ |
| Ravagh Persian Grill | Separate lunch menu, cheaper than dinner on the same dishes | Daily | 11am–11pm | $$$ |
| Ayat | No deal — unambiguous first-party halal claim | Daily | 11am–10pm | $$$ |
| Al Badawi | BYOB — no corkage published | Daily | 11am–10pm | $$$ |
| Sami’s Kabab House | Single skewers $10–$14.50 against $23–$35 platters | Daily | 11:30am–10:30pm | $$$ |
| Kabab King | Breakfast Specials from $10.50; chai, naan and roti $1.99 | Daily | 7am–1:45pm | $$$ |
| King of Falafel & Shawarma | Falafel sandwich $10.99, shawarma platter $15.49 — counter prices | Daily | 11am–10pm | $$$ |
| The Halal Guys | Platter $15.99, sandwich $10.99 — delivery prices, window is lower | Daily | 10am–4am | $$$ |
| Adel’s Famous Halal | No published price; cash beats the card surcharge | Daily | 6pm–4am | $$$ |
| Sammy’s Halal | Open 24 hours; walk-up price not published | Daily | 24 hours | $$$ |
Map: where these 14 spots are
Four boroughs’ worth. The cluster on Broadway in Astoria and the one under the 7 train in Jackson Heights are each walkable in a single trip.
Pins are numbered to match the table above — tap any pin for the deal and directions.
Halal happy hours that actually exist
Three. Across five boroughs, these are the only halal or halal-meat kitchens we could find running a verifiable discounted window. Two pour alcohol, one doesn’t. If you want the full citywide list of discounted windows, that’s our citywide deals hub.
Jade Eatery & Lounge On now
This is the best halal happy hour in New York and it isn’t close, mostly because it’s the only one that prints its prices. Noon to 7pm, every day, bar and lounge only: $9 signature cocktails, $3 draft beer and house wine, $4 bottled beer, $5 shots, $6 wells. Bites run $5 to $7 — edamame and avocado rolls at the bottom, calamari and a teriyaki steak taco at the top. The Local Move: come Wednesday, when the $5 Wine Wednesday pour undercuts the happy hour list, or weekday lunch for the $18 four-course, noon to 4pm. The honest caveat: their own FAQ page still says Monday to Friday. Four other pages on their site, including the happy hour page’s own title tag, say every day. Go with every day — and know it’s the bar and lounge only, not the dining room. On halal: their words are “all our meat is also Halal,” and they run a full liquor bar, so it’s a halal-meat kitchen, not a dry one.
jadeeatery.com · See our Forest Hills happy hour guide
Top Thai On now
Nine-dollar cocktails on Carmine Street stops being believable, so here’s the receipt: it’s on their own drinks page, and the same site sells those cocktails at $19 outside the window. Margaritas and mojitos in six or seven flavors each, lychee soju, a Long Island. Drafts are $5 — Singha, Sapporo, Blue Moon, Lagunitas. Wine, prosecco and wells are $9. Weekday lunch starts at $15.95 with a free spring roll, salad or soup, and weekends there’s a $29.95 bottomless hour. The honest caveat is the clock. The kitchen shuts 3:30 to 4:30 every day, so a 4pm arrival for a $9 margarita gets a locked door — and an owner post on Yelp says the window is 4–9pm, not 11:30–7. Their own site wins until they say otherwise. The sister room on Sullivan Street runs the same everyday 11–7 window but publishes no prices.
Nur Thai
The dry happy hour nobody writes about, and the reason this section has three entries instead of two. Zabiha-certified meats, a completely non-alcoholic bar, and a mocktail happy hour we can confirm exists and cannot confirm the terms of. Their own site quotes a customer saying appetizers are 25% off. A TikTok says mocktails are half off and apps are 30%. There’s an Instagram reel titled “Happy Hour at Nur Thai.” What there isn’t, anywhere first-party, is a published window or a published number — so we’re not printing one. Go, ask at the bar, and know the room carries it either way: the Queens Chamber of Commerce voted it the borough’s best halal restaurant, and the zero-proof program is the actual draw rather than a consolation. Closed 4–5pm on weekdays. Second location in Rego Park.
nurthai.com · See our Astoria happy hour guide
Prix fixe, lunch menus and sit-down value
No happy hour, but a real price break if you go at the right time or order inside the right menu. More set-price eating in our cheap eats guide.
Junoon
There’s no happy hour and there was never going to be — most nights the door doesn’t open until 5:30. What there is: a Prestige lunch at $43 for two courses or $49 for three, basmati and naan included, plus Restaurant Week at $45 lunch and $60 dinner through September 6. The trap is the sides. Dal is $18, garlic naan $7, raita $8, and a $43 lunch becomes an $80 lunch in three clicks. Order inside the menu and it’s the best-value fine dining on this page; order around it and you’ll understand why diners rate the food 4.2 and the value 1.5 on OpenTable. On halal: management gives verbal assurance, it’s listed as partially halal, alcohol is poured, and nothing is posted. Also note they moved — it’s 19 W 24th now, not 27. Call first if it matters to you.
Full profile · junoonnyc.com · See our Flatiron happy hour guide
Tanoreen On now
Rawia Bishara’s dining room is the best cooking on this page and it doesn’t discount, exactly — it lets you order less. Half portions on most grilled entrées, noon to 4pm, chops and combo platters excluded. Full sizes run $30 to $46, so a half at lunch is the whole play. The Local Move: pay cash. There’s a 3.95% card fee, which on a $120 table is most of a mezze. Closed Mondays — OpenTable’s weekend hours are wrong, their own site is right. Two things we can’t confirm and won’t invent: whether they pour alcohol at all (their current menu carries no beverage list, while a stale OpenTable listing claims a full bar), and whether the kitchen is halal-certified — nothing is posted, so ask when you book. Open since 1998. Order the baked kibbeh.
Full profile · tanoreen.com · See our Bay Ridge happy hour guide
Ravagh Persian Grill
Ravagh runs separate lunch and dinner menus and the same kebab costs meaningfully less before the switch. That’s the deal, and it’s the only one. They do have a bar — there’s a Persian Martini and a Tehrani Mule on their own Instagram — which makes this a certified-halal kitchen with a liquor license, a combination worth knowing exists. What they don’t have, despite a snippet circulating that claims a 4–7pm window, is a happy hour: the hours inside that snippet contradict their actual 11am–11pm, and Yelp’s own Q&A says flatly that there isn’t one. Two address traps: OpenTable lists 11 E 30th St and the delivery apps say 171 Madison. It’s 173 Madison. The portions are the reputation and the room is genuinely quiet. Swap the plain basmati for the sour-cherry rice.
ravaghrestaurants.com · See our Murray Hill happy hour guide
Dry, BYOB and built for a table of eight
The rooms with no bar to discount — where the move is bringing your own bottle, or ordering the part of the menu nobody advertises. Two of these are the best group dinners in Brooklyn and Queens.
Ayat
Every location page says the same four words: “All Halal, all delicious.” No hedging, no aggregator, no ask-before-ordering. On a page like this that’s worth more than a discount, because most venues here make you go looking. There is no happy hour, no prix fixe, no lunch special, and they don’t need one — the Michelin Guide and a New York Times hundred-best listing agree. Five NYC rooms are open: Bay Ridge, Astoria, Bushwick, Ditmas Park and the East Village. Industry City is closed and their own site says so; the Health Department shut it in March over nine violations. One more correction worth having: Bay Ridge moved across the street to 8501 3rd Ave. Half the internet still sends you to 8504, and that listing reads as temporarily closed on Google.
Full profile · ayatnyc.com · See our Bay Ridge happy hour guide
Al Badawi
Bring the bottle. That’s the deal, and it’s a better one than most happy hours. No bar, no corkage we could find published, and no happy hour possible — Al Badawi is BYOB, which on Atlantic Avenue with a table of eight beats any two-for-one in this borough. The format is large-format: eight kinds of cheese flatbread, ouzi lamb with rice and almonds, bamia, and water poured from a clay jarrah. Same ownership lineage as Ayat, no alcohol served, and it’s widely listed as halal without posting a certificate — the honest version is “dry kitchen, ask about the meat.” A second room opened on the Upper East Side. Caveat for planners: they publish no priced menu, so every number you’ll find online is a delivery markup. Call before you budget a group.
Sami’s Kabab House
The menu reads expensive — $35 lamb chops, $27 mixed Afghan kabab, $29 Uzbeki qabuli pulao — until you find the single-skewer column underneath: chicken kofta $10, chicken afghani $12, lamb $14.50. Nobody markets that as a deal. It’s just where the value is. It’s BYOB and dry, they’ll open what you bring, and the room is three storefronts stitched together over the years, which is why a party of ten fits. Halal status here is verbal assurance rather than a posted certificate. The honest caveat, and it’s the thing people complain about most: reviewers consistently report a 20% service charge landing on the bill automatically. Ask when you sit down. Two housekeeping notes — their old domain is dead and a squatter owns the obvious one, so Instagram is the real channel.
instagram.com · See our Astoria happy hour guide
Kabab King On now
The deal here is breakfast. Their own ordering menu runs a Breakfast Specials section from 7am to 1:45pm every day, with halwa puri, aloo bhujia and channa at $10.50. After that it’s one flat list, and the flat list is where Jackson Heights actually eats: naan $1.99, roti $1.99, chai $1.99, a kabab roll at $6.75, and a chicken biryani they’ve named the Mamdani Bhiryani at $15. Order off the grill. That’s not a preference, it’s twenty years of consistent reviews — the kababs and tandoori are why people come, and the curries are why a 2.8 on Yelp sits next to a 4.5 on the delivery apps. Halal certificate on file, no alcohol, not BYOB. It bills itself 24/7 and in practice runs about 7am to 2am, so treat “always open” as a strong maybe.
kababking.com · See our Jackson Heights happy hour guide · best Pakistani restaurants in NYC
Carts and counters: the cheapest halal in the city
Chicken over rice, falafel, shawarma, and the honest state of 2026 pricing. Most of these run past midnight — see our late-night food guide for what else is open.
King of Falafel & Shawarma
Falafel sandwich $10.99, shawarma sandwich $13.69, shawarma platter $15.49, falafel platter $12.49 — straight off their own ordering system, not a delivery app’s markup. That alone makes this the most honest listing in this section, because nearly every other cart price on the internet is inflated. Freddy Zeideia won the Vendy for Best Street Food in 2010 with Palestinian-style chickpea-only falafel and house-made pita, and they still hand out free falafel while you wait. A correction we owe you: 30-15 Broadway is the brick-and-mortar restaurant, not the cart. The truck moved off Broadway in 2016 when the storefront opened and now works the Ditmars end of 31st Street, with three more trucks around the city — check their social for the corner before you go hunting one. Order the shawafel.
Full profile · kofnyc.com · See our Astoria happy hour guide · best Middle Eastern restaurants in NYC
The Halal Guys
Thirty-plus years on 53rd and 6th, open to 4am on weeknights and 5am on weekends, and the regular platter now lists at $15.99 on their own delivery storefront. The walk-up price is lower and they don’t publish it, which is the honest state of things: the food is the same white-sauce, hot-sauce chicken over rice it always was, and the price has quietly caught up with a sit-down lunch. Two things worth knowing before you queue. There’s a rival cart on the southwest corner of the same intersection, which is where most of the “this isn’t the real one” arguments come from. And they are not Vendy winners — they were finalists in 2005 and lost. The 14th Street storefront keeps the same hours if you’d rather sit down.
Full profile · thehalalguys.com · See our best late-night food in NYC
Adel’s Famous Halal
Doesn’t open until 6pm, and the line is the point. A night cart, full stop — 6pm to 4am, 5am on weekends, at the southwest corner of 49th and 6th. Expect 30 to 45 minutes at midnight on an ordinary weeknight, an hour or more at peak, and a near-walk-up after 4am. The lamb-and-chicken combo platter is the order; their hot sauce is the better-balanced one in the Midtown cart argument, while Halal Guys’ is hotter. We’re not printing a price, because they don’t publish one and the most recent figure we can source is a 2023 review putting a two-item order around $21. Bring cash — there’s a card surcharge and extra sauce costs extra. Nothing nearby is open at 3am, which is the entire reason the line exists.
Full profile · adelsfamousnyc.com · See our best late-night food in NYC
Sammy’s Halal
The green sauce is the reason to come — parsley, mint, cilantro, garlic, and genuinely different from every white-sauce cart in the city. The red one bites. Sammy’s has held this corner under the 7 train for about twenty years and won the second Vendy Cup ever awarded, in 2006, and that award is most of what it trades on now: newer reviews are consistently softer on portions and cleanliness, and the aggregate has slid into the mid-3s. Worth it at 3am, when “open” is the only spec that matters and the block has nothing else. Skip it at 8pm, when Kabab King is a four-minute walk away and cooking better. We’re not publishing a walk-up price: the delivery menu says $12 for chicken over rice, the window is materially cheaper, and neither number is first-party.
Full profile · See our Jackson Heights happy hour guide
What this page got wrong, and what everyone else still has wrong
Halal listings age badly and nobody goes back to check. Here is the audit, including the correction we owe you on our own page.
We had Zou Zou’s on this page and we were wrong
Until this update we listed Zou Zou’s at Manhattan West as halal-certified with a full bar. We can’t find a halal claim anywhere — not on their own site, not on Zabihah, not on HalalJoints, nowhere. It’s an alcohol-forward Mediterranean restaurant and a good one, but it comes off this page until somebody at the restaurant confirms it. If that’s you, tell us and it goes straight back on.
“Halal” on a sign is not a certificate
Certification on this page runs three distinct ways and we’ve marked which is which. Posted certificate on file: Kabab King, Ravagh, Top Thai. Verbal assurance from staff: Sami’s Kabab House, Junoon. Reputation with nothing posted: Tanoreen, Al Badawi. Only Ayat states it flatly in its own voice. If it matters to you, ask at the counter — and don’t take a directory’s word for it.
Zabihah’s alcohol field is wrong on this page twice
Zabihah is the most useful halal directory there is and its halal summaries are worth reading. Its alcohol flag is not. It marks both Top Thai and Ravagh Persian Grill “No alcohol allowed.” Both demonstrably serve alcohol — Top Thai sells $5 draft beer and Long Islands on its own menu. Don’t build a dry-venue list on that field.
The cart price you found online is a delivery price
Almost every halal cart figure on the internet comes off a delivery app carrying a platform markup. The Halal Guys’ $15.99 platter and Sammy’s $12 chicken over rice are both app numbers, and the window is cheaper at both. King of Falafel is the exception on this page: its prices come from its own ordering system, which is why they’re the only cart numbers we’d defend.
The Halal Guys never won a Vendy
They were finalists in 2005 and lost, to Hallo Berlin. The award gets attached to them constantly. The genuine winners on this page are King of Falafel & Shawarma (2010) and Sammy’s Halal (2006), and in King of Falafel’s case the food still justifies it.
Four addresses the internet has wrong
Ayat Bay Ridge is 8501 3rd Ave, not 8504 — they moved across the street and the old Google listing reads temporarily closed. Junoon is 19 W 24th, not 27. Ravagh is 173 Madison, not the 11 E 30th on OpenTable or the 171 on the delivery apps. And King of Falafel’s truck is not on Broadway — it moved to the Ditmars end of 31st Street in 2016.
Two locations on the big halal lists are shut
Ayat Industry City is closed — their own site says so, and the Health Department shut it in March 2026 over nine violations including carbon monoxide readings above 9 ppm. Jade’s Port Washington location is also closed; Forest Hills and Hicksville are the live ones. Neither closure has stopped either address from circulating.
Every iftar deal you’re reading about is over
Ramadan 2026 ended in March. Iftar platters and buffet pricing stay indexed all year and read as current in search results — Kabab King’s iftar buffet is the one you’ll hit most often. Nothing on this page is an iftar deal, and nothing here depends on a season.
One page-one result is selling a March wine deal in August
Zou Zou’s still hosts a live “Wine Week Lunch — $20 for 10 wines” page from a promotion that ran March 6–10. It’s indexed, it looks current, and it is five months dead. A live URL is not a live deal, which is most of the reason this page exists.
Halal restaurants in NYC: FAQ
Is there a halal happy hour in NYC?
Yes, but only three we can verify. Jade Eatery & Lounge in Forest Hills runs $9 cocktails and $3 drafts noon to 7pm every day, bar and lounge only. Top Thai on Carmine Street runs $9 cocktails and $5 drafts from 11:30am to 7pm daily. Nur Thai in Astoria is alcohol-free and runs a mocktail happy hour it doesn’t publish terms for. Most halal restaurants with liquor licenses run no happy hour at all.
What is the best halal restaurant in NYC?
For cooking, Tanoreen in Bay Ridge — Palestinian, open since 1998, a Michelin Bib Gourmand. For a kitchen that states its halal status without hedging, Ayat, whose own pages say “All Halal, all delicious” across five open NYC locations. For a cart, King of Falafel & Shawarma in Astoria, the 2010 Vendy winner and the only cart here publishing real counter prices.
How much is chicken over rice in NYC in 2026?
Delivery menus list $12 to $16 — The Halal Guys’ regular platter is $15.99 on their own storefront and Sammy’s chicken over rice is $12 on DoorDash. Walk-up prices at the cart are lower, but almost no cart publishes them. The exception is King of Falafel, whose counter prices are first-party: $14.29 for the original chicken, $10.99 for a falafel sandwich.
Which halal restaurants in NYC serve alcohol?
Junoon, Ravagh Persian Grill, Top Thai and Jade Eatery all pour, and Jade and Top Thai are the two that discount it. Ayat, Al Badawi, Sami’s Kabab House, Kabab King and Nur Thai are dry. Al Badawi and Sami’s are BYOB, so you can bring your own bottle — which at a table of eight is worth more than most happy hours.
Where can I get halal food late at night in NYC?
The Halal Guys on 53rd and 6th run to 4am on weeknights and 5am on weekends. Adel’s on 49th doesn’t open until 6pm and runs to 4 or 5am. Sammy’s Halal in Jackson Heights is open 24 hours. Kabab King bills itself as 24/7 and in practice runs roughly 7am to 2am, so don’t count on it at 4am.
Is halal cart food actually halal?
Not automatically, and the standard varies. On this page, Kabab King, Ravagh and Top Thai have a certificate on file; Sami’s Kabab House and Junoon have verbal assurance from staff; Tanoreen and Al Badawi post nothing and run on reputation. Only Ayat says it plainly in its own voice. Ask at the counter if it matters, and treat directory listings with suspicion — they get the alcohol field wrong on two venues here.
Last updated: August 2026. Deals, hours and halal certification change — confirm with the venue before you go, and ask at the counter if certification matters to you. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it.
