Fouta is a combination Senegalese and Guinean restaurant serving signature dishes from both countries. From Senegal, try the chicken mafe, the bird stewed in a thick peanut sauce laced with scotch bonnet peppers. From Guinea, there’s a leaf-based sauce called sauce de feuilles dotted with lamb (meats can vary in both dishes). The menu changes often with a few dishes available from each cuisine, so ask the counter person.

After spouses, Maymuuna “Mona” Birjeeb and Shakib Farah opened Safari in 2014, it became the rare hangout spot for birthday parties, Mother’s Day celebrations, and iftars for the Somali American community in Harlem. Now, New Yorkers at-large demand their bestsellers: roasted goat, mango curry, and chicken suquaar (stewed chicken). They’re cooked in a base of cumin, turmeric, cardamom, bay leaves, garlic, and spicy green peppers, Birjeeb tells Eater. And they all come with an addictive bisbaas sauce that’s spicy and tangy with jalapeños and limes. 

The chicken shawarma and fluffy pitas are hits, but the real showstopper is the hummus — all seven of them. In every bowl of creamy hummus, a pool of olive oil, whole chickpeas, paprika, and a topping — fava beans, sautéed mushrooms and onions, or ground beef and pine nuts — sits right on top, just waiting to spill over and mix with the hummus below. 

The tagine reigns supreme at Dar Yemma. Six lead the menu — kofta in tomato sauce, beef with peas and artichoke, chicken with olives and preserved lemon, lamb with prunes, shrimp, and fish. Each one is presented in a steaming clay pot with bread. Served in traditional Moroccan style, the couscous is doled out separately to stand in its own right. The royal couscous, for instance, indulges with merguez sausage, lamb, free-range chicken, chickpeas, and currants. 

Amani group founders Jashim Ullah and Razib Hasan have partnered with chef Chang Bihsiang, to open Mr. Chang in Astoria, with a menu of kung pao chicken, chile lamb, and Beijing duck (Peking duck) — all halal.

Nur Thai has opened the second outpost for the Amani Group’s popular Rego Park restaurant of the same name. The entirely new food and beverage offering includes coconut cream udon and smoky pineapple mocktails. Chef and partner Bunprasit “Tony” Kunarux was the former executive chef of the now-closed Samui in Brooklyn.

Sami Zaman keeps a whole halal lamb in his basement fridge, and for every order of kebab or chop, he butchers the pieces himself just because he’s a tad obsessive. He grills them to get the tenderness and char just right. And that’s how the former coffee-and-bagels street cart vendor grew Sami’s Kabab House to two other outposts in Long Island City and Long Island — and inspired his son to launch his own modern halal coffee shop. The mantu (beef dumplings), sabzi (stewed spinach), and firni (custard) hit just right, too.

Boishakhi, along with Aladdin Sweets a few storefronts down, anchors the Little Bangladesh enclave of Astoria on 36th Avenue between 29th and 31st streets. It’s a counter spot where you see around 20 glistening dishes steaming up the glass and choose what’s for lunch or dinner. Locals go for the charred chicken or beef Bihari — marinated in onion and cooked in the tandoor — and plenty of veggie sides, like the okra, are cooked al dente.

A noodle pull here reaches heights rarely achieved in other noodle spots. The lagman are stretched and twisted over and over until the right thinness is achieved. The meat dishes also shine. The lamb-stuffed samsa is juicy, and the lamb skewers, serve on sword-like skewers, are soaked in cumin, which gives a yellow tinge that can be mistaken for turmeric. Owner Adil Nurdun brought most of these recipes from Toksun County in the autonomous Uyghur region of Xinjiang — though prefers to call it Turkestan — in northwest China to Flushing when he opened Nurlan in June 2019.

A fast-casual momo spot offering fried or steamed dumplings in various newfangled combinations, including tandoori, taco, and chaat as well as chile, cheese, or sandeko with chile paste, mustard oil, and roasted soybeans.

Fast-casual Guac Time features halal Mexican food in a glossy setting. The menu spans several regional cuisines, from Tex-Mex queso served with tortilla chips to Jalisco birria tacos served with a cup of consome. You’ll find a choice of soft or crispy tacos and a selection of bowls that run from beef barbacoa to vegan meat substitutes.

The age-old sentiment goes something like, “Mom’s cooking is the best.” Nur-E Gulshan Rahman took that to heart, and funneled all her years cooking for her kids into her own Korai Kitchen — and piling on accolades from Eater and the New York Times while doing so. The Bangladeshi buffet used to be filled with comfort foods like macher jhol (fish curry), begun bhortha (roasted and mashed eggplant), and khichuri (lentil and rice). The restaurant is only open for takeout and catering — the menu still remains and every takeout bag comes with a handwritten thank you note — as Rahman and her general manager daughter execute a “rather extensive renovation” on the restaurant. Daughter, Nur-E Farhana Rahman tells Eater they’re planning to re-open before the end of 2022. 

Meat and Bread is another addition to the Lower East Side’s growing collection of non-traditional halal restaurants. It offers a pleasantly upbeat setting with a pink color scheme, a flame grill from which burgers and steaks fly, and an international selection of dishes including a ribeye sandwich with chimichurri sauce, fried chicken and waffles, a chopped cheese empanada, and a chicken masala sandwich.

A mini-chain of five restaurants in Queens, Halal Munchies’ Kew Gardens branch is colorful and compact. The menu offers a broad range of crispy treats, including fish sandwiches; chicken wings, tenders, and nuggets in several flavors; and salads with or without meat. Burgers (including a “heart attack burger”) are available, and a fine rolled gyro sandwich with mixed chicken and lamb meat and a choice of sauces. Falafel, too.

The Zafran Grille serves Buffalo chicken wings, melty cheeseburgers and juicy T-bone steaks — and they’re all zabiha halal-certified by the Halal Food Standards Alliance of America. The nonalcoholic drinks menu is extensive with nearly 20 cocktails like the mango mojito. The restaurant is a personal project for co-owners Sheik Farhad and Chowdhury Haque: When their father passed from COVID-19, he asked the brothers to “work together to serve the Muslim community,” Farhad tells Eater.

The corner of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue has been a Yemeni neighborhood since the 1970s and Yemen Cafe is an anchor. Lamb haneeth is one of its don’t-miss dishes, a hulking shank cooked in a clay-lined oven called a taboon. There are also assorted kebabs of chicken and lamb as well as bean dishes and bread dips galore. There’s also salta — a wonderful bubbling stew with a layer of fenugreek emulsion on the top: Dip your fresh malooga bread and enjoy.

Since the late ’80s, this distinctive carryout restaurant near Barclays Center has been slinging halal Chinese food, doctrinaire in every regard except that it doesn’t use pork. Most of the menu is Chinese American, and anything involving shrimp is recommended. But the big, beefy steamed dumplings are very much northern Chinese style, and also very much worth ordering.

The story is now long familiar, how Muslim owners Riyadh and Farouq Gazali took over a Jewish deli in Bed-Stuy and left nearly everything the same. Sandwiches are available in three sizes, and include pastrami, corned beef, and brisket. Best of all and long ascended to legendary status is the brisket with gravy sandwich on a club roll, with the gravy dumped on the meat rather than served on the side.

The beef rolls at Uzbeki Shashlik House — beef pulled from a T-bone steak then rolled in lamb fat for extra juice — are a rarity in NYC. They’re just one of twenty kebabs on an extensive menu that also includes three steaks and veggie sides. Owner and Tajikistan native Suhrob Mullojonov has been selling his charcoal-grilled skewers for a while now. 

This Bensonhurst mainstay on a busy corner under the elevated D tracks stays open till 11:30 p.m. seven days, providing kebabs, bread dips with homemade bread, casseroles, hot apps (try the calves liver), and salads. One of our favorite main courses is the iskender kebab: freshly shaved lamb doner on toasted pita cubes, inundated with both yogurt and tomato sauce, furnished with a spicy green grilled chile.

Keep walking until your jaw drops at the hot food buffet. Two sprawling islands hold over 200 self-serve trays each one offering a central Asian dish more enticing than the one before it — bulging lamb mantis, fat and wrinkly grape leaf-wrapped dolma, a bright red sea of pomegranate seeds over pink beets and white rice. Both sight and smell compete for attention. Still, there’s more. The lagman counter and the plov bar serve hot noodle soups and rice and meat pilaf. The place is dangerous for those with weak impulse control. But if that’s the case, bring a jumbo Ikea bag for your haul. 

A beyti kebab is made with ground lamb and onions formed into a cylinder around a spit and then grilled, in this case over flames. It is then wrapped in a flatbread and inundated with tomato sauce and yogurt. The restaurant has several variations on this formula, and also grills shish kebabs, doner kebabs (like shawarma, only herbier), and makes Turkish pide that are something like Middle Eastern pizzas. All the usual bread dips, soups, and salads are also available at this staple in the middle of Brighton Beach’s main drag.