Zou Zou's

The dip tower starts at the bench

Juliana Latiff sets dip towers and bazlama into motion as Chef at Zou Zou's in Manhattan, where the kitchen works in the register of the Eastern Mediterranean. Her station is not only the pass; it is the whole line of people producing the food with her. Latiff has described the pressure plainly, tied to background, cuisine, and leadership: “I want to make sure I'm being a proper leader for them.” At this restaurant, that leadership lands in dishes built for the center of the table, with the hand visible in the spread, the tear, the dip, the cut chop, the folded pastry.

Her known signatures give the place its shape: Strawberry Shirazi salad with cucumber and mint, Smoked Cherry Baby Lamb Chops, Kataifi Cheesecake, and dip towers. The house frames the cooking through Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, but the work at the pass is not a survey. It is a restaurant language, tightened for a modern room near Hudson Yards, with bread, smoke, acid, herbs, and dairy moving through the meal in measured sequence.

A hearth pulls the room toward smoke

The open kitchen centers on a wood-fired hearth, and the program makes that decision count. Dips arrive with bazlama bread: green tahini, ember-roasted eggplant, whipped ricotta with saffron apricots, black garlic chickpea, smoked carrot. Honey Butter Kubaneh Yemeni Pull Apart Rolls bring the table to the bread before the heavier work begins. Shaved Vegetable Fattoush and Strawberry Shirazi keep the cut vegetable sharp, while dishes such as Zou Zou's Duck Borek, Moroccan Fried Chicken, Smoked Cherry Colorado Lamb Chops, and Yemeni Filet Au Poivre carry the darker edge of the station.

The method here depends on contrast rather than ornament. Char, smoke, mint, cucumber, saffron, black garlic, cherry, kataifi: each has a job. The kitchen also keeps vegan options inside the same discipline, with dips and bread, fattoush, Strawberry Shirazi, and caramelized cabbage. That matters because the place is built around sharing, and a shared table tests a kitchen differently from a plated progression. Every bowl has to hold its own, but it also has to leave room for the next hand reaching in.

Tiles, arches, and the pass in view

The room at 385 9th Ave Suite 85 sits on the ground level of Pendry Manhattan West, with the plaza traffic close enough to register through the glass. Inside, AvroKO's design gives the restaurant dark woods, off-white plaster, blue and green tile, arches, domes, tall ceilings, and red velvet booths. The effect is structured rather than themed; the surfaces carry the Levantine reference while the kitchen keeps the pace.

Because the pass is open, the room never fully separates from the bench. Bread comes through warm. Smoke follows the chops. A dip tower changes the table before anyone has chosen a favorite. Cocktails and the back bar have their own Mediterranean inflection, but the strongest signal comes from the food moving outward, plate by plate, from Latiff's kitchen. The dish is Kataifi Cheesecake.