New York City / Middle Eastern
Best Middle Eastern
Restaurants in NYC
Turkish, Israeli, Persian, Georgian and Levantine — and the lunch trick that beats every happy hour.
Only two of these publish a deal — but ilili charges $8 for the hummus that is $15 at dinner, and that beats both.
- 18 verified rooms
- 2 publish a deal
- 5 have a full bar
- 2 are genuinely dry
The best Middle Eastern restaurants in NYC right now are Sofreh in Prospect Heights (the Persian restaurant in this city, and the tahdig is the order), ilili in NoMad (where the hummus is $8 at lunch and $15 at dinner), Ayat in Bay Ridge (the strongest Palestinian kitchen in New York), Kubeh in the Village (the only room here with a real daily happy hour, $10 cocktails 5–7pm) and Old Tbilisi Garden, the one place that lets you bring your own liquor. Two things this guide does that others do not. It prints the drinks policy on every card — five full bars, three wine-only, two genuinely dry, and seven that publish nothing — because in this category that is the question people actually have. And it says plainly that only two of eighteen publish a deal, so the real saving is lunch.
The short version
- Only real happy hourKubeh — $10 cocktails and bites under $8, daily 5–7pm, published on their own site.
- Better than a happy hourilili: hummus is $15 at dinner and $8 at lunch. Same plate, same day.
- Bring your ownOld Tbilisi Garden allows BYO wine and liquor for corkage. Nothing else here does.
- Latest kitchenLittle Istanbul on Avenue U, 10am–4am every day. Nothing else is close.
- Out of date everywhereLiman moved to Surf Ave · Cheeseboat’s own site lists a closed room · Sahara has shuttered.
At a glance
What to order, whether they serve alcohol at all, and where the room actually is.
| Restaurant | Order this | Drinks | Neighborhood | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kubeh | $10 cocktails, bites under $8 | Full bar | Greenwich Village | $$$ |
| ABA Turkish Restaurant | $21.95 weekday lunch | Beer + BYO wine | Midtown West | $$$ |
| ilili | Hummus $8 lunch / $15 dinner | Full bar | NoMad | $$$ |
| Persepolis | $27 lunch prix fixe | Full bar + corkage | Upper East Side | $$$ |
| A La Turka | Mixed Grill $40.99 | Not published | Upper East Side | $$$ |
| Little Istanbul | Adana kebab | Not published | Sheepshead Bay | $$$ |
| Liman Restaurant | Whole grilled fish | Not published | Coney Island | $$$ |
| Au Za’atar | Tableside lamb shawarma | Full bar, Lebanese wine | East Village | $$$ |
| Ayat | M’sakhan | Not published — assume dry | Bay Ridge | $$$ |
| Yemen Cafe & Restaurant | Lamb haneeth · fahsah | Dry | Cobble Hill | $$$ |
| Qahwah House | Adeni chai · sabaya | Completely dry | West Village | $$$ |
| Old Tbilisi Garden | Adjaruli khachapuri | Full bar + BYO liquor | Greenwich Village | $$$ |
| Chama Mama | Khachapuri · Supra Box | Wine | Chelsea | $$$ |
| Cheeseboat | The cheese boat | Organic Georgian wine | Hell’s Kitchen | $$$ |
| Sofreh | Tahdig · Persian rice | Bar seats, walk-in | Prospect Heights | $$$ |
| Ravagh Persian Grill | Fesenjan | Certified halal + cocktails | Murray Hill | $$$ |
| Shifka | Falafel pita · sabich | Wine | NoHo | $$$ |
| 12 Chairs Cafe | Hummus | Not published | SoHo | $$$ |
Map: where these 18 spots are
Turkish runs down to Sheepshead Bay. Georgian is clustered in the Village and Midtown. Persian is three rooms, unconnected.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the detail and directions.
The two real deals, and the lunch trick that beats them
Where the money actually is in this category. More in best lunch in NYC.
Kubeh On now
Of eighteen restaurants verified for this guide, exactly one publishes a happy hour with both days and a window on its own site. This is it: daily 5 to 7pm, with $10 cocktails and bar bites under $8. The kitchen is Kurdish-Israeli and the dish it is named for is kubeh — dumplings served in broth — with weekend brunch 11am to 4pm. The honest caveat, and worth one question at the door: the venue does not state whether the deal is bar-only. “Bar bites” implies the bar; if you want a table at 5:30 and the happy-hour price, ask when you sit down rather than when the bill arrives. Also note there is no weekday lunch — doors are 5pm.
eatkubeh.com · See our Greenwich Village happy hours
ABA Turkish Restaurant On now
The only BYO-wine room in this entire guide except one, and the cheapest sit-down lunch near Columbus Circle: a $21.95 weekday lunch special, 11:30am to 3pm, at a kitchen where lamb chops are $37.99 and lamb shish $30.99 at dinner. The drinks setup is unusual and useful — beer plus BYO wine, no full bar, with house wine by the glass at $6.95 if you arrive empty-handed. Two honest caveats: the $21.95 lunch is published on OpenTable, not on the restaurant’s own site, and the two sources also disagree on closing time (10pm on their site, 10:30pm on OpenTable). Worth one call before you build a lunch around it.
abaturkishnyc.com · See our Hell’s Kitchen happy hours
ilili
The single best piece of arithmetic in this guide, and it is not a happy hour: hummus is $15 on the dinner menu and $8 on the lunch menu at the same restaurant on the same day. Lunch runs Mon–Fri 11:30am to 2:30pm; duck and lamb shawarma are both $22 at dinner, the brussels sprouts the room is known for $18. The wine list holds a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence, running Lebanese bottles alongside Bordeaux and Rhône. The honest caveat: there is no happy hour here, and the $39 brunch prix fixe is published with no days or times attached. The saving is structural — eat at lunch, not dinner. Second room at 157 E 53rd St.
ililirestaurants.com · See our NoMad happy hours
Persepolis
The most complete bar in the Persian leg of this guide: beer, wine, cocktails and a corkage option if you bring your own bottle, in a Michelin Guide 2025 Selected room on Second Avenue. Order the albaloo polo, the sour-cherry rice. The saving is the $27 lunch prix fixe against dinner entrees running $24 to $66, and unlike Sofreh it is open for lunch every single day. The honest caveat, and it is a genuinely annoying one: OpenTable flags a happy hour here. Nobody — including Persepolis — publishes when it runs or what is on it. Until someone calls, treat it as a rumour rather than a plan, and go for the lunch prix fixe instead.
Turkish
The deepest sub-cuisine by headcount, and a south-Brooklyn axis that has thinned. See best Mediterranean restaurants.
A La Turka
One of very few restaurants in this guide that publishes actual prices on its own website, which after eighteen of these is worth saying out loud: Mixed Grill $40.99 — lamb adana, chicken shish, chicken chops, meatballs and lamb shish on one platter, and the whole table’s order — with chicken shish kebab at $31.99. Open 11am to 11pm every day, including Sunday, with no closed day, which is rarer in this category than you would think. The honest caveat: they publish prices and no drinks policy at all. Nothing on their site says whether there is a bar, wine or BYO, so treat the beverage side as unknown until you call.
alaturkanyc.com · See our Upper East Side happy hours
Little Istanbul
Ten in the morning until four the next, every single day — the latest kitchen in this guide by a margin of hours, and the only real after-2am Middle Eastern option in New York. Lamb shish, chicken adana and kofta kebabs alongside hummus and grape leaves, on the south-Brooklyn Turkish corridor. Context worth having: it is the last one standing on that axis — Sahara at 2337 Coney Island Ave has shuttered, and it was the biggest Turkish grill in south Brooklyn. The honest caveat: no prices and no drinks policy are published anywhere. You are going for the 4am kitchen, not for a verified deal — and if you want a drink with dinner, call first.
littleistanbulrestaurant.com · See our best late-night food in NYC
Liman Restaurant
Correction first, because almost nobody has updated: Liman is at 825 Surf Avenue, second floor, on the Coney Island waterfront — not on Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, where most aggregator listings still put it. It is also up a flight of stairs. A South Brooklyn landmark since 1999 in its own words, billing the best grilled fish in town, with Black Sea and Aegean seafood and seasonal hours published in two blocks — October to March and April to September. Reservations run through Resy. The honest caveat: two blanks. No prices and no drinks policy. A whole-fish Turkish restaurant on the water is not a cheap night, and their site gives you no number to plan against.
limanrestaurant.com · See our best seafood restaurants in NYC
Levantine, Palestinian and Yemeni
Lebanese wine bars, the best Palestinian kitchen in the city, and a coffee scene nobody covers. Pair with best halal restaurants.
Au Za’atar
A whole lamb spit wheeled to your table and carved in front of you, in a room that is a serious Lebanese wine bar as much as a restaurant — Yelp files it under Wine Bars, and the drinks are priced accordingly: beer $8.50–$14, wine by the glass $12–$16, bottles up to $430. The food itself sits in OpenTable’s “$30 and under” band, which makes this one of the better value-per-experience rooms in the guide. Second location in Midtown East. The honest caveat: the dish the entire restaurant is built around has no published price anywhere. Ask what the tableside shawarma costs and what the minimum party size is before you order it.
auzaatar.com · See our East Village happy hours
Ayat
The best Palestinian cooking in New York, and the only Palestinian entry in this guide. Order the m’sakhan — roasted chicken with sumac and onions over warm taboon bread — or the lamb ouzi royale. It has gone from one Bay Ridge storefront to Astoria, Bushwick, Ditmas Park, the East Village and beyond. Two corrections: it is at 8501 3rd Ave, having moved across the street from 8504, where a stale Google listing still reads temporarily closed — and the Industry City location is closed, though their own homepage still lists it. DOHMH shut it after a March 2026 inspection. The honest caveat: no drinks policy is published. Plan for a dry room and confirm if it matters.
ayatnyc.com · See our best halal restaurants in NYC
Yemen Cafe & Restaurant
The single most useful fact on this card: it does not open until 2pm on Fridays. Every other day is 10am to 11pm; aggregators list a 10am Friday open and they are wrong, so show up hungry at noon on a Friday and the door is locked. Billed on its own site as the first Yemeni restaurant in the United States, with lamb haneeth and fahsah — shredded lamb served bubbling in a clay bowl with bread and salad. Second Brooklyn room at 7317 5th Ave plus a Staten Island branch. The honest caveat: nothing about drinks is published anywhere. Assume dry — and see the Yemeni coffee houses below for what this corner of the category actually drinks.
yemencafe.com · See our Cobble Hill happy hours
Qahwah House
The least-covered and fastest-growing corner of Middle Eastern New York, and no guide reports it: a late-night, sit-down, completely alcohol-free social category that is expanding fast. Qahwah House alone runs five NYC cafes — West Village, Upper West Side, Williamsburg, Bay Ridge and Astoria — from a family whose founder is an eighth-generation coffee maker. The West Village and Bedford Ave rooms run noon to midnight; Broadway and Bay Ridge open at 7am. Order the adeni chai and the sabaya honeycomb bread. The honest caveat: no prices published on the locations page, the Astoria room lists no hours at all, and there is no alcohol anywhere in the chain. This is a cafe, not a bar.
qahwahhouse.com · See our best coffee in NYC
Georgian
The one cluster in this category that is genuinely growing. More in best wine bars in NYC.
Old Tbilisi Garden
The only venue in this entire guide that allows you to bring your own liquor for a corkage fee — not just wine, spirits — on top of a full bar with Georgian wine, and it is mentioned in no NYC guide to the restaurant. There is a garden behind the Bleecker Street storefront. Order the adjaruli khachapuri, the cheese-and-egg bread boat. Read the hours before you go, because they are genuinely uneven: Mon and Thu 1pm–10pm, Tue does not open until 4pm, Fri 1pm–11pm, Sat noon–11pm, Sun noon–10pm. The honest caveat, twice: menus are published as images with no readable prices, and OpenTable flags a happy hour with no times published anywhere.
Chama Mama
The clearest evidence that Georgian is the growth story in Middle Eastern New York: one restaurant became five rooms — Chelsea, Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, Greenpoint and Bushwick — and 149 W 14th is still the flagship. Khachapuri is the dish doing the expanding. Weekend service starts at 10am, weekdays at noon. The Supra Box group feasts — khinkali, kebab, mtsvadi and mixed grills in one box — are published at $36–$82, and are the only published numbers anywhere on the site. The honest caveat: for a five-location group they publish remarkably little — no khachapuri price, no khinkali price and no drinks list on any location page. Thoughtfully selected wines, and that is all you get.
chamamama.com · See our Chelsea happy hours
Cheeseboat
A single-dish restaurant built entirely around the khachapuri boat, pouring Georgian mountain wine including organic bottles their own site says carry zero preservatives. Open noon to 10pm on weekdays, 11pm Friday, and from 11am at weekends — a much earlier open than the old Brooklyn room ever managed. The honest caveat, and it is an unusual one: do not trust the restaurant’s own website. Its locations page still lists a Williamsburg room at 80 Berry St, which Yelp marks closed. The live room is 747 9th Ave in Hell’s Kitchen. Every listing that trusted the official site is now wrong. No khachapuri price is published anywhere either.
cheeseboatnyc.com · See our Hell’s Kitchen happy hours
Persian, and the Israeli counters
Three Persian rooms is the whole field — we are not padding it. See also best cheap eats in NYC.
Sofreh
The Persian restaurant in New York, and the story is worth knowing: chef-owner Nasim Alikhani opened it in summer 2018 at the age of 59. The New York Times named it among ten of the best new NYC restaurants. Order the rice, and specifically the tahdig — the crisped bottom layer. The local move, published by the restaurant itself: bar seats are very often available for walk-ins at opening time, which is how you get in without a booking. Two honest caveats: it is closed Mondays and runs a four-hour service, Tue–Sun 5:30 to 9:30pm — a hard early close for Brooklyn — and the $25-a-head cancellation fee is real and bites after 11:30am on the day.
sofrehnyc.com · See our Prospect Heights happy hours
Ravagh Persian Grill
A genuinely unusual combination that no listing gets right: a certified-halal Persian kitchen that also pours cocktails. A Persian Martini and a Tehrani Mule appear on their own Instagram, while Zabihah’s listing marks the place “no alcohol allowed,” which is demonstrably wrong. Order the khoresh fesenjan, the walnut and pomegranate stew. The saving is the lunch menu, priced below dinner on the identical kebabs. Two honest caveats: there are two live address traps — OpenTable lists 11 E 30th St and the delivery apps list 171 Madison — and a 4–7pm happy hour claim is circulating that does not hold up: the hours in it contradict the restaurant’s actual 11am–11pm.
ravaghrestaurants.com · See our best halal restaurants in NYC
Shifka
Open since November 2025 with a stated ambition to be the Chipotle of Israeli cuisine, and the detail that makes it worth a card here: it pours wine, which essentially no falafel counter in New York does. Order the falafel sandwich, the sabich with eggplant or the lamb kebab, and add the $3 tahini-vanilla soft serve. Open 11am to 10pm daily, counter service, no reservation needed. The honest caveat: their own website publishes no menu prices at all — you have to open the Toast ordering page to find out what anything costs, which for a fast-casual counter is a strange choice. More in our best cheap eats guide.
shifkanyc.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
12 Chairs Cafe
A sixteen-hour day, which nothing else in this guide attempts: 8am to 11pm Sunday through Thursday and 8am to midnight Friday and Saturday, from one kitchen, with a second room at 342 Wythe Ave in Williamsburg. Most of this category does not open before 11am, so if you want Israeli breakfast — shakshuka, hummus, the works — this is effectively the only option. The hummus is what they are known for. The honest caveat: nothing about drinks is published for either room. If you want wine with the hummus that is a phone call, not a fact — and given the breakfast trade, do not assume it.
12chairscafe.com · See our Soho happy hours
NYC Middle Eastern: FAQ
Which Middle Eastern restaurants in NYC have a happy hour?
Almost none. Of 18 venues verified for this guide in August 2026, exactly two publish a deal with both days and a time window: Kubeh in Greenwich Village runs a happy hour daily 5-7pm with $10 cocktails and bar bites under $8, published on its own site, and ABA Turkish in Midtown runs a $21.95 lunch special Monday to Friday 11:30am-3pm – though that one appears on OpenTable rather than the restaurant’s own website. Two more, Persepolis and Old Tbilisi Garden, carry a happy hour flag on OpenTable with no days, window or prices published anywhere at all.
Do Middle Eastern restaurants in NYC serve alcohol?
It varies more than any guide reports, so check before you plan a night. Of the 18 here: five have a full bar (Persepolis, Old Tbilisi Garden, Au Za’atar, ilili and Kubeh), three serve wine only (Chama Mama, Cheeseboat and Shifka), one does beer plus BYO wine (ABA Turkish), and two are genuinely dry (Qahwah House and Yemen Cafe). The remaining seven publish nothing at all about drinks. Old Tbilisi Garden is the only venue in the guide that allows you to bring your own wine and liquor for a corkage fee.
Is lunch cheaper than dinner at NYC Middle Eastern restaurants?
Often dramatically, and it beats every happy hour in the category. ilili in NoMad charges $15 for hummus on the dinner menu and $8 for the identical plate at lunch, Monday to Friday 11:30am to 2:30pm. Persepolis runs a $27 lunch prix fixe against dinner entrees of $24 to $66. Ravagh Persian Grill prices its lunch menu below dinner on the same kebabs. On a page about deals, the honest advice in this category is structural: eat at lunch, not dinner.
How many Persian restaurants are there in NYC?
Three that a local would send a friend to, and padding that number would be dishonest: Sofreh in Prospect Heights, Persepolis on the Upper East Side and Ravagh Persian Grill in Murray Hill. They form no cluster at all – three unconnected neighborhoods across two boroughs. Sofreh is dinner only, closed Mondays, with a hard 9:30pm last seating; Persepolis is the one with a genuine full bar and serves lunch every day; Ravagh is a certified-halal kitchen that also pours cocktails.
Which Middle Eastern restaurants in NYC have closed?
Three worth knowing, all still listed as open somewhere. Sahara at 2337 Coney Island Avenue, the biggest Turkish grill in south Brooklyn, has shuttered. Turkish Kitchen at 386 Third Avenue, a decades-old Manhattan institution, is marked closed on Yelp while its own website is still live and Time Out still runs an active review page for it. And Cheeseboat’s Williamsburg room at 80 Berry Street is closed – though Cheeseboat’s own locations page still lists it, which means every listing that trusted the official site is wrong. The live Cheeseboat is 747 9th Ave.
Last updated: August 2026. Prices and hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
