Huda New Levantine Bistro

Two New Brooklyn Restaurants Help Define Modern Lebanese Cooking | Eater NY

"In Williamsburg, the 60‑seat Huda — in the former Edith’s Eatery — presents an ivory front with tinted windows and potted plants; the main dining room doubles as a barroom with a mottled-brown marble bar, two‑thirds table seating with nice wall treatments and complicated lighting, and a long hallway that leads to a more intimate dining room. Syrian-born owner Gehad Hadidi (who has run Midtown’s La Bonne Soupe since 2019) teams with chef Omneyah Hassan, of Egyptian descent and formerly at Celestine and Pasquale Jones; the compact menu offers about 15 dishes with no divisions plus three desserts. I didn’t love the grilled squid and hummus ($23), where the hummus was pale and almost soupy and the pairing didn’t quite work for me, but Huda’s batata hara ($14) — deep-fried potatoes like shredded wheat with harissa and herbed labne — is moist, not oily, and richly flavorful. Their kibbeh nayeh ($27) uses bright-red raw ground beef mixed with homemade harissa and bulgur, but the harissa and bulgur are nearly undetectable and the dish tastes much like French steak tartare, which is not unexpected given the La Bonne Soupe connection. The msakhan (whole boned branzino) is seasoned with sumac and served on fresh flatbread with too little tahini; splayed for easy eating, it reads more like a pot pie than a fresh fish but is still quite good. Huda has many memorable features of its own and is worth trying even if my overall preference leans toward Sawa." - Robert Sietsema