Eating at Ayat: Modern Middle Eastern Cuisine Inspired by Palestinian Recipes
By Ian MacAllen on Tuesday, December 31st, 2024 at 4:23 am
There’s a lot more than falafel at this Palestinian restaurant, but of course, they have that too. Ayat opened in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn about 5 years ago at the end of 2020.
Since its inception, the restaurant has been overtly political. According to the New York Times as far back 2020, the restaurant declared “end the occupation” using sidewalk chalk out front. Since then, politics in the Levant have only gotten more complicated.
Ayat’s owners have included the phrase “from the river to the sea” on the menu stirring a controversy and accusations of antisemitism. Despite death threats, the owners hosted a shabbos dinner with Jewish and Palestinian guests, as well as catering to provide Kosher foods.
Regardless of politics, the food is good, and the restaurant rapidly expanding into a chain spanning Brooklyn, as well as locations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We even came across the recently opened Bushwick location a day after having lunch in Ditmas Park.
But Abdul Elenani, the restaurant’s founder, isn’t just opening more Ayat locations. Elanani has opened other halal restaurants like al Badawi, and the Italian-inspired Fatta Mano.. Al Badawi is described as a sister restaurant to Ayat, but Fatta Mono is a classic red sauce joint, but don’t expect pork sausages.
We first ate at the Bay Ridge location back in December of 2023 on a gray December afternoon. It was a pre-game meal before taking our toddler to the Dyker Heights Christmas lights, where there is a tradition of over-the-top decorations.
The food was delicious on that visit, but our toddler was a bit uncontrollably chaotic. We were lucky to find the intimate space wasn’t all that busy when we arrived in the odd hours between lunch and dinner. There were just a few tables, and we sprawled across several of them. Corralling him was a bit of a challenge while scooping up mezze, but I enjoyed it enough to visit again. In the intervening months, a second Bay Ridge location has opened across the street to better accommodate demand.
Almost a year later we found ourselves in Ditmas Park looking for lunch. Our plans to have our toddler pass out in the stroller were foiled by his stubbornness, but we persevered and handed over diecast Thomas the Tank Engine for him to play with, taking a seat in Ayat’s enclosed sidewalk space. It’s unclear if the sidewalk cafe has survived the winter purge of outdoor dining imposed by the city, but it seemed fairly permanent and attached to the front of the building.
the plate, and while Tabbouleh is usually my least favorite of the mezze salads, Ayat does something slightly different that I can’t really pinpoint.
The mezze arrived with fresh pita that was light and warm. You’d be surprised how many restaurants screw up this one simple thing, but it wasn’t a problem for Ayat.
The star of the meal was the falafel pizza. To be honest, we ordered this without even knowing what to expect. Here’s where I should insert the GIF of Michael Bluth, “I don’t know what I expected.” It’s a pizza, topped with falafel – and it was absolutely delicious.
There are plenty of history texts that attempt to link Italian-style pizza to Mediterranean flatbreads. Personally I tend to think these proto-pizzas are, at best, distant cousins of 19th century Neapolitan pizza. An example of this tenuous link is the claim that Roman soldiers topped matzah with their rations of cheese and oil.
Ayat’s falafel seems to have more in common with modern Neapolitan pizza than Middle Eastern flatbreads. It’s woodfired, and the crust competitive with any of the top tier Brooklyn Neapolitan pies. The pizza was topped with tomatoes and onions, and of course falafel. A drizzle of tahini adds flavor and color.
This dish is one I would come back for again and again.
Since we didn’t exactly know what to expect with the falafel pizza, we also had a chicken Shawarma platter. The chicken was a bit plain, short on seasoning and flavors.
The dark meat was a bit greasy, which should impart flavor on the other elements on the plate, like the rice. Everything else on the platter was flavorful, and the chicken seemed bland by comparison. The platter overall was a tasty dish, served alongside pickles and vegetables. The pickled red onions were absolute perfection, far more than a garnish.
We also ordered a side of French fries for our toddler, who dipped them in ketchup one-by-one. He finished all his food, although we ended up with leftover mezze and sharma. In transit, our take-away boxes mixed everything together, but this mess became a delicious snack the following day.
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Ayat
1618 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn
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You might also enjoy our look at Au Za’atar in the East Village or Laser Wolf in Williamsburg.
