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casual dining
Al-Sham Sweets & Pastries
brings authentic Middle
Eastern treats to Astoria
BY ELISABETH BECKER
Al-Sham Sweets & Pastries sits on
Steinway Street in Astoria, within a fourblock
stretch of Middle Eastern restaurants,
bakeries, groceries, jewelry sellers
and all-purpose shops. From the outside,
Al-Sham appears unremarkable, as
one awning among many. But inside, the
scents of butter, baked nuts and rosewater
sweeten the air.
I arrived on a summer-like day in early
May at opening time, 11 a.m., to eat the
famed kunafa at its freshest. Co-owner
Talal Nabulsi waved me out of the bakery.
“Can you wait 25 minutes?” he asked
with a smile, rushing back into the kitchen
to ascertain that nothing had burned.
But he didn’t leave me empty-handed
while I waited: he sent me out with a pistachio
baklava, a semolina cookie fi lled
with spiced dates, an apricot butter cookie
and what appears to be a small edible
bird’s nest of phyllo dough, a generous
layer of nuts glued to its top.
Al-Sham co-owners and brothers, Talal
and Sam Nabulsi, grew up in Jordan. Th ey
hail from a family of chefs, having learned
the trade from their father, taught by his
own father. When I asked Talal Nabulsi
how he mastered baking such a wide
array of sweets, he shrugged.
“You know, when your father does
something, and it’s in your family, that’s
how you learn it,” he said. “You are born
into it. My father showed us everything.”
Th eir family’s fi rst restaurant opened
in Jordan in 1935. Th e brothers opened
Astoria’s Al-Sham nine years ago, in
2009, in this Middle Eastern neighborhood,
with the aim of satisfying cravings
from across the region.
“Our sweets are Palestinian, Jordanian,
Saudi Arabian. Baklava, that is Turkish,”
Talal Nabulsi explained. Refl ecting the
diversity of New York City and their
own familial crossings across borders are
sweets from around the world, not only
kunafa and kadayif, but also baklava and
stuff ed jelly rolls fi ll their display.
Th ey largely serve the local populace
in the neighborhood, devoted customers
who fl ock to the shop for freshly baked
sweets hailing from across the Middle
East.
“Our customers come every day,
because they know we bake fresh stuff
every morning” said Talal Nabulsi with a
smile and an eye on the oven at all times.
Under the hot sun of this summer-like
day, I delved into the selection of cookies
that Nabulsi gave me while I waited, all as
a preamble to the main act: the kadayif.
First, I sampled a butter cookie, its center
fi lled with thick apricot preserves. Its
balance was remarkable: buttery richness
broken through by sweetness and a hint
of tart from the fruit.
Next, a semolina cookie (the dough
cooked without sugar) stuff ed with aniseed
and cinnamon-spiced date preserves.
It was more aromatic than sweet.
I followed this by a small piece of baklava,
generously soaked in butter and
sugar syrup, plump with crushed pistachios.
Th is was, I realized, the fi rst baklava
I have eaten in America that did not
break my heart.
Finally, I bit into the phyllo dough
bird’s nest, nuts just caramelized, with a
crunch. Th e sweetness was again subtle,
enough to satisfy a child without overwhelming
an adult.
When I returned aft er 25 minutes,
large silver trays of just-baked kunafa and
kadayif rest on the counter.
I began with a square of the kadayif,
saving the best for last. Where there
is rosewater, it is soft ly aromatic, a light
complement rather than a fl oral distraction
to this nut-stuff ed pastry.
While the kadayif was delicious, as
the cookies were, the kunafa of Al-Sham
remained the star. It simply cannot be
outshined. With a single bite, I was transported
to a restaurant, two hours outside
of Istanbul, where I fi rst indulged in
this cheese-based dessert, bathed in butter
and coated in a combination of pastry
and crushed pistachios. Following my
trip to Turkey, I sought out kunafa in
West Berlin (where there are good contenders
in the neighborhoods of Wedding
and Neukolln), in London and New York.
Th is is, hands down, from Istanbul to
Berlin, London to New York, the best
kunafa I have ever eaten.
It is sublime.
I am not the only one who thinks
so. Maryam, a young woman from the
neighborhood, arrives with her 3-yearold
daughter to indulge in “the best of the
best” kunafa, baked from a family recipe,
history of crossings and new beginnings,
each morning in Astoria.
Al-Sham Sweets & Pastries
24-39 Steinway St., Astoria
718-777-0876