Sintir

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When a restaurant takes 15 hours to prep a dish and asks you to call a day before to give them a heads up, then you know they've aced the "authenticity" part of the culinary litmus test. Say hello to Sintir, an East Village Moroccan eatery from Hassan Hakmoun. Hmmmm, not ringing a bell? Turns out, in Morocco he's a famous gnawa musician (a combo of Berber and African sounds) who once opened for Peter Gabriel in the '90s. Natch, Sintir now extends his Moroccan cultural ambassadorship to food. "If we had a good Moroccan restaurant in New York, I would not be open," he quips. The 15-hour dish in question: tangiya, a kind of super-tagine in which baby lamb is slow-cooked in garlic, cumin, olive oil and lemon until the meat practically melts. The menu is overseen by both Hakmoun's sister and mother, who whip up other traditional dishes like pastilla, a puff pastry with ground chicken and minced almonds, and tsaya—chicken spiced with ginger and cinnamon and served with couscous. Several of Hakmoun's sintir—a three-string bass instrument—hang throughout the place, which features 700-year-old wood brought in from Afghanistan and India.

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East Village restaurants, New York restaurants, Middle eastern restaurants, Moroccan restaurants