Nur

If you want a taste of cutting-edge Israeli cooking without hopping on a flight to Tel Aviv, you could do an awful lot worse than Meir Adoni’s bustling Flatiron establishment Nur, where the young Moroccan chef from Israel turns out a whole cavalcade of flamboyant Middle Eastern recipes, like foie gras parfaits designed to be spread over challah toast with rosewater gelée; and a beefy, hand-cut “Palestinian tartare” mixed not with capers and egg yolk but smoked eggplant, sheeps’ yogurt, and a radical dash of raw tahini. Some of these experiments work better than others, but nothing on the menu is boring, and if rosewater gelée isn’t your thing, it’s possible to make a fine dinner out of the exotic breads alone, especially the sesame-speckled Jerusalem bagel served with za’atar, and the puffy, crown-shaped loaf of Yemeni kubaneh, which Adoni also serves in Tel Aviv, with a cooling bowl of grated tomato and olive oil and a bracing Yemeni hot sauce called zhug on the side.