Tanoreen

We wouldn’t send you to the ends of the Earth (not the Earth, maybe, just the R line; it’s the third-to-last stop) without good reason. That reason is spice alchemist Rawia Bishara, whose métier is the cuisine of the Middle East, as her mother cooked it in Nazareth and as Bishara brilliantly reinterprets it, via garlic-amped parsley-ringed platters that challenge long-held perceptions about the true nature of things as pedestrian as hummus and baba ghannouj. Eggplant is a means to many sublime, deeply smoky ends. Lamb is chopped and encased in a crunchy kibbeh shell, or braised for hours on the bone. As you savor your meal, try to discern the individual components of the signature Tanoreen spices that Bishara scatters about like pixie dust.