Salam Restaurant

Went for lunch. Loved the setting and ambiance and the chicken kabob with rice was delicious! Will definitely be back to check out dinner.

Loved this place! Delicious everything, super speedy service, beautiful atmosphere and vibes! ¹⁰⁄₁₀ middle eastern food!

With a combination of a very relaxing and quaint atmosphere, accommodating staff, and AMAZING food, this is definitely a must visit secret gem of the West Village.

The hummus was good but not amazing. The portion is really huge, way more than two people can finish. Miiight have filled up on pita before our meals even came. The Vegetable ouzi (with spinach eggplant zucchini carrots peas) was good but the Chicken curried chicken layered with eggplant and rice was amazing! The chicken was perfectly cooked and I loved the eggplant in there, wish there was even more of it! Nothing was spicy, so I was good. I didn’t like the ‘Rumade’ drink so I’ll try something else next time. The staff was really nice and didn’t mind that we really took our time and hung around for quite a while, even though it was Saturday night. The place is big so they still had plenty of tables. Next time, I hope I can sit in their cozy little room with cloth draped all over and pillows all around. Great spot!

I’ve lived around the corner for years but never ate here until recently which is to my loss. Came here twice in the last week (lunch and dinner) and both times the meal was excellent. Highly recommend the mixed kabobs for dinner. The beef tangine was also really good but a little on the salty side. The vibe is very relaxed and good for catching up with some friends or a date.

My favorite restaurant a block away from my office. Consistently good food, friendly service, affordable prices.

Lovely quiet oasis for New School University grad students, administrators and faculty. Old school bohemian atmosphere. Décor eclectic. 2 or 3 small tables outside on lower portion of street, front room has natural sunlight and a big TV screen, backroom has more seating. Service good. Enjoyed a casual business lunch here. Enjoyed a small tray with 3 tasty baklavas and pot of mint tea for dessert. Will be bringing people in the book and library trade back here for lunch. Keywords = «quiet» and «low key.» I think the bathroom is downstairs, so watch out if one of your guests can’t handle stairs.

So-​so Middle Eastern restaurant in Greenwich Village is a very nice place to come. The dining room is very spacious and well decorated. The food was pretty mediocre. The curry was a little bland but the coriander dishes were more flavorful. Service was a bit cold but prices were cheap. I’ll come back and give it another try.

Went there for lunch yesterday, and as a few others mentioned, the place was pretty much empty except for us (a few people came in for «to go» orders). I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why it wasn’t packed.
The lunch specials were made of fresh, delicious ingredients — we both did the combination plates; I had a salad with their hummus which, as others have mentioned, was excellent; probably the best hummus I’ve ever had. The smartest thing I did, however, was get a side of chicken to add to my salad; holy smokes, was that delicious! My friend had falafel and grape leaves with her salad and enjoyed both.
I definitely plan to return to try their dinner menu. But for an affordable, delicious lunch, I really recommend this place. Oh, and on your way of, pick up a pack of Altoids because, well, garlic…

Strolled in with a friend and the place was near empty on a Sunday evening. Ordered the Macloubee chicken and was nicely flavored with curry. The presentation was quite nice and came with roasted eggplant on basmati. Would come back just for this, really loved this dish. My friend had the chicken kebab and the meat was succulent! Service was fine, but we were one of a few people there. Food came out not too long after we ordered and the waitress and woman in back were both pleasant.

I’ve been coming here for years and the food is always fantastic. I order the chicken ouzi dish every time and it never disappoints. The hummus is also really great! I’ve brought several friends here and they all equally love the food. The drinks are only ok and the wait time is usually long, those are the only reasons I won’t give it 5 stars. I’ll definitely continue to come and bring friends. And order the chicken ouzi every time!

I went here with a friend who is a regular and raved about the food. Although the service was slow (I blame this on my friend who is very familiar with the owner and the staff and pretty much acts like this is his second home and is treated as such) the food was fantastic! The hummus and the babaganoush were clearly made in house and were simply addicting. I damn near spoiled my appetite because I couldn’t stop eating them. But I managed to save room for the main course.
I ordered a tagine dish which was good but the real reason I am writing this review is because of what my fiancé ordered– the chicken ouzi dish. After he offered me a bite of this it’s fair to say I hijacked his plate. It was positively divine. It was beautifully seasoned curried chicken and rice, balanced with sweet golden raisins stuffed into a fillo dough pastry. This was a comfort food at it’s finest. It was huge, (which is great because my fiancé only got to eat half of it) and satisfying. I keep thinking about this dish and it will be the reason I go back. If they offered it on their lunch menu I would be a frequent visitor because I work in the area, but this dish is worthy enough to make this place a dinner destination for me.
Don’t expect fast, formulaic service and matching plates and glasses. This is more like a home away from home and the attitude is friendly and relaxed so if you have a time limit do yourself (and this place) a favor and skip it. This is a spot far removed from all that hustle and bustle of NYC. Savor it.

I wanted to like this place. But it fell very flat. Went there with a family group on the friday after Christmas, early — like 6:30pm. The place was completely empty, and I wish we’d figured out why: the heat was not working. The waitress who seated us did not tell us this, and we didn’t realize it until we were seated in the back room (which we thought would be warmer). By then we were hungry and just wanted to eat, but we ended up keeping our coats on throughout the meal, and not once did the waitress apologize or say anything about it.
Some of the prices seem a bit high, as the food was unspectacular to say the least. My coriander beef was over-​seasoned, the meat not very fresh or tender. The two Ouzi pies (vegetarian and chicken) were large and hot but undistinguished and not very flavorful. The curry our 4^th ordered was bland and also unremarkable. The appetizers were a bit better, but the pita bread was surprisingly stale. In general our experience echoed the other two star reviews here, and maybe the place did change owners recently? Lackluster service, empty place, high prices, mediocre food. And freezing cold.
In short, not recommended.
Avoid.

So I’ve been a few times, and have to say, I keep wanting to come back for more. The vibe and ambience is relaxed and vibrant.
I love the seating options: on the front patio, inside with morrocan tiled mosaic tables, or in the private room for larger parties.
The food here is pretty legit. Standard warm fresh pit bread out of the oven. (If places dont have this down, I’m not impressed. Not matter how good the food is.)
The labneh is divine, hummus is good, falafel are super authentic and dipped in either tahini or hummus complete the bite. The baba ghanoush was so-​so, a bit disappointing. And the fatoush salad is more of a fusion but fun take on the traditional salad. The lentil soup is massive and a full meal by itself. It’s more of a vegetable lentil soup, but still tasty.
I typically only order Mediterranean appetizers because a) they are better portions b) more selections c) my eyes are bigger than my belly.
The staff is super friendly and sweet. When I came during Ramadan and was fasting, we made our orders and asked them to kindly wait until sunset to serve us; which they graciously did.
It’s a bit hidden because of construction happening out front, but really a great place to have a group dinner (which is so hard to do in the city!), or just with a couple of friends. Very quiet place.

One of the reasons why a chose Salam restaurant was because the website said the restaurant was opened more than 30 years. The current owners, however, I believe have been there for a much shorter timespan. The place was cute enough and we chose to sit at a cozy corner two seater in their little «tent» area. Although after 9 PM, it was a beautiful first week of summer Saturday evening and I was a little bit surprised that there weren’t more patrons in the place.
Every review gets at least one star. Salam gets a second star because we enjoyed the ambience, the Labanese Blanc de Blanc wine (although our first choice Syrah-​Cabernet Lebanese red was not available) and one of the desserts were good.
After we were situated a friendly waitstaff dropped off a basket of pita bread which looked like he came out of a package and some green olives that had a less than pleasing odd taste for which I could only stand to try one of them. Salam missed rather badly on the «special» zucchini fritters opener (Ejjay). It was greasy and obviously over fried. To be fair, it tasted better than it looked, but you really had to take off the singed edges and eat the middle. We did not finish it.
I ordered the cardamom vegetable main dish which I found to be fresh and of well balanced taste. My mouth and mind were pleased to chew into it. The other main dish was advertised as a vegetable curry and was basically devoid of any such resemblance. There was no heat and no flavor… Two strikes alone.
I believe ethnic restaurants should basically never mess up a staple dish. My baklava missed. Although overall I can report enjoying it, and the ingredients were probably fresh, it was not sweet enough nor sticky enough and it fell apart very easily making it difficult to eat. The other dessert had the taste that I was craving and looked like a little birds nest.
I know that having an open door is usually inviting for hungry guests, however seeing the little rodent scurry under the couch on my way out really stood out in contrast to the large letter «A» health department rating on their front door. The food hit us both in a bad way and we were slightly nauseous our journey home.

Such a NYC hidden gem! Food is deeeeeelicious. The décor is beautiful and the atmosphere very relaxing.
The ouzos are crispy and delicious. I also love the chicken or lamb coriander — very rich flavor and goes well with the rice.
Come here for the lunch special!

Both good and bad qualities to this restaurant. As others have said, the service is not good. The waitress was very pleasant… BUT it takes an extraordinarily long time to get your food (even when the restaurant is empty)!!! Also, the pita they brought to nibble on was somewhat stale and they didn’t even have olive oil on the table or anything to dip it in!
However, when the food did arrive, the chicken ouzi was absolutely delicious. It was flavored perfectly and i couldn’t stop eating. I think it should be served with some sort of green vegetable, however, as it is just a pastry filled with spiced rice and chicken. Something healthy on the side would add a lot to the dish. The pomegranate sangria was also strong and yummy.

Stopped by for lunch on a quiet Monday. Only a few tables occupied — one server on shift. Décor is rather pretty but looks dated. Some of the tables have ornate decorations a la Morocco. Other tables had white linens. Linen napkins. No background music at lunch today.
I had the beef tagine which seemed OK to me, served on a regular plate rather than in a traditional tagine dish. Came with a side of plain couscous as you might expect. The entrees come with a choice of soup or salad — I had the Lentil soup which was fair As a lunch special, it was only $ 12.00.
Add complaint here: my guess is that in Morocco tagine’s are made with lamb or maybe chicken. So a beef tagine is less than authentic — even if it tastes OK. I googled beef tagine’s which seem to be popular in Britain. I have had better tagines at Barbe’s on 36^th Street.

So disappointing! The food was bland and confusing, the prices were much higher than they should have been and the atmosphere was tense.
The only Middle Eastern aspect of this place was the décor and the music. Our server was a Hispanic woman who seemed terrified of the older Caucasian female cook who seemed to be in charge. The server hovered by the door to the kitchen, popping her head up nervously to peek into the kitchen window as if she were not allowed to go back there.
Plain pita bread and whole olives were served on a plate that had space for one more item (hummus? olive oil?) but when we asked, the server said that this was all. My soda was served in a 3-​ounce wine glass with a regular-​sized straw that looked silly and made it difficult to drink. I was given another soda upon request but when the bill came I was surprised to see that I had been charged $ 2 two times — the server was apologetic but said that was correct. Our just-​ok-​tasting food was served in a random order — my son got his unseasoned side of couscous nearly 10 minutes after receiving his entrée. I will say that the falafel appetizer was exceptionally good — too bad that was about it.
I was glad to say «Masalama» to Salam.

Years of walking by repeatedly finally paid off 2 wks ago when I wandered in for a quick bite. Homemade sangria was adequate, then the delish, addictive hummus came out and wowed me. Hummus can be a hit-​or-​miss thing… this one had the perfect, non-​obtrusive combination of garlic, lemon and tahini. I inhaled the hummus with warm, fluffy pitas… then the pièce de résistance was the yogurt chicken. Simply divine.
This is one of those dishes where the flavors are so subtle yet flavorful, you have to concentrate on your food in absolute silence to enjoy. Tender, moist chicken marinated to perfection in spices balanced by the nicely-​seasoned, fluffy basmati rice. Thin slivers of baked cinnamon pita slices proved an interesting counterpart.
I only had these 2 dishes and am eager to come back for more!