With a series of restaurants openings across the world, the Lebanese seem to always stand out from the rest with a wide range of home delicacies and excellent hospitality.
Nabila’s, the recently launched Lebanese restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, has a different story, though.
Unlike the many restaurants expanding from Lebanon to the world, Nabila’s was born as the result of massive success in homemade catering by the Lebanese Nabila Farah for the Washington party circuit.
And food critics are raving about it.
“Around Washington, Ms. Farah is known for the dinner parties she puts on at her own home,” writes well-known food critic Pete Wells in The New York Times.
Among the clients of her homemade catering in Washington are also the World Bank, Middle Eastern embassies, and the Internation Monetary Fund (IMF), according to the New York Times.
Born in Beirut, Executive Chef Nabila Farah launched the new restaurant in Brooklyn in partnership with one of her sons, Michael Farah, to share her mother and grandmother’s legacy of Lebanese sustenance with the New Yorkers.
Michael, who owns the restaurant, wrote on the restaurant’s website, “My hope is to recreate the spirit of Nabila’s dinner parties and share her beautiful cooking – the kind of food rarely found outside of Lebanese homes – with my Brooklyn community today.”
In a post on Instagram, he gives a beautiful testimony about his mother, captioning an image of his mother in her youth in Beirut and now as a grandmother, stating:
“Nothing bound us more to Lebanon than Nabila’s food. She’s been cooking multigenerational dishes her whole life. Some are familiar (she does make great hummus), but many are hard to find outside of Lebanese homes, where much texture and deliciousness hides.”
Nabila’s restaurant features a wide menu, an assortment to say, from delish Lebanese Mezze and large plates – Tabbouleh, Loubieh, Malfouf, Maghrabieh, etc – to appetizing desserts like Knafeh Ashta and Maamoul.
It offers small plates on the side, including Sambousek and Fatayer, not forgetting the dips – Hummus, Mouhamara, and Mutabal – to top off the Lebanese experience.
“Nabila’s main dishes are not the kebabs and other grilled meats which, for many Lebanese diners, are synonymous with eating out,” Pete Wells of the New York Times points out. “Most of the food comes to the table looking the way it would if you had helped yourself from a platter with a serving spoon.”
This gives you a taste of the authentic Lebanese home menu while maintaining an appealing aesthetic.
Nabila’s restaurant is located at 248 Court Street in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood.
Related: A Mother-Son Team Opened A New Lebanese Restaurant In New York.
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