Zerza

regarless of wait !!! but the food was amazing it realy worth the time cuz it taste delcious and freshly made !!!

The service here was awful. I went on a Saturday night with 5 people — when we got there it was nearly empty. We waited for a while to have our menus — but they only brought is 2. It wasn’t extremely busy, but it was impossible to get the servers’ attention. The food was just ok. The Spinach Cigars (comes with two) were quite good, as was the beet salad. The Vegetable Tagine was nothing special. Probably won’t be back.

Went there for dinner tonight. Everything was really delicious! I had the chicken bastilla, and the spinach cigars and they were sooo good! The waiter was very nice and helpful. I will definitely return!

We walked by Zerza last night and said to ourselves «this place looks great, we should check it out sometime.» So despite the middling Unilocal reviews, we came back tonight and I’m glad we did.
There is a soothing ambiance to the place. It’s quiet, dimly lit and there is ambient Middle Eastern music playing. This is a great place for an intimate dinner, whether it’s with a date or a few friends.
The service was fine and the menu had enticing options. We went with the sharing route, starting with Labne, hummus and Middle Eastern Salad. For the main we had the Couscous Royale (recommended by the waiter). The food was great; a solid Moroccan dinner. Very good for the price. Not quite 5 star but highly recommended.
Overall I enjoyed it and would certainly come back to try out other dishes.

The so called lamb was fatty mutton for both the tagine and couscous royal… the cook came out to see me as I seemingly didn’t like the food since the waiter saw me just picking at it. The cook said he would give me something else on the house. However, it was worse: the merguez were disgusting and I had to spit out hard pieces while chewing it! The crazy cook wanted to charge me… after I paid the bill, for the two non eaten dishes! I left the restaurant and he was freaking out. He started filming me and following me with his iPhone filming and saying he was calling the cops on me! He followed me for 2 blocks and then I jumped in a cab! Crazy crazy! …and a bit scary for just a sat night out for dinner in the big apple! Terrible place!

Zerza is my favorite hidden gem. Service is great and food is delicious. Meze Plate and Savory Maroccan Meatballs are great to order as an appetizer. As a meal usually we order Chicken Tagine Casablanca and Couscous Lamb Berber are so delicious and tender. Besides food, Zerza has beautiful ambient and music. Waiters are very friendly.

The restaurant is well decorated and lovely, but in the future I would skip it and head to a more favored establishment. The food portions were at best average in size and the prices were high. That said, the food was tasty, and I give the restaurant four stars for flavor. I ordered the dip appetizer (good, just not plentiful) and lamb tagine (very delicious).
My ratings breakdown:
Service: Two stars bumped up to three stars; the service was very slow and it took a while to get the orders. However, I was granted a free glass of wine. So overall, I would give service three stars.
Value for the money: Three stars. The food was good, but not worth the prices.
Taste: About four stars; the food was flavorful.
On average the restaurant is three stars.

Nothing special. Everything was ok or subpar.
The fried cheese appetizer was unique, in a bad way. A sweet and salty mess. Also skip the scallops — tiny and the sauce wasn’t great.
The skewers were fine, but nothing was especially good.
I say skip it.

I’ve over the last 3 visits to Zerza fallen in love with this place. My brother had stumbled upon this place over New yrs last yr and had the time of his life eating, drinking, and dancing with the belly dancers.
6 Months later my brother invited us to Zerza for a family get together and that’s were my love for this place started personally. The owner, staff and crew are fast on their feet, and so super polite and customer driven for satisfaction. The server was from Russia but funny, attentive and would suggest things to best suit our large family.
The foods just finger licking good !!! It’s not your touristy place food wise cause its made real authentic spices and the wy it should be. Most touristy places alter their recipe to fit the tourists need and by that time the foods not ethnic any more. It’s american.
This place serves you the authentic food, with the feel of Morocco and once again with «A+» service and humbleness.
I hate going to any business where you pay good money and the workers make you feel like they are doing a favor to you for bring out the food or serving you.
I want to go to a place where customers are valued and they appreciate you coming in to support their business and enjoy their product. Zerza values their customers with a humble heart.
On sat I think they have Belly dancers or for Pvt parties there you can request the dancer to come and dance at your table for an additional cost which needs to be pre arranged. They also do prefix dinners but I prefer ordering all kinds of stuff from their menu so limited choices doesn’t help me. At Zerza you want more !!! not less !
I wish they had a full liquor license. Cause I’d love to lounge there with a hooka and have a few drinks with my friends on a weekend night. Currently they just have a great wine list to choose from.
Anyone should plan their next event, bday party or friendly dinner here and be amazed to be wowed by the food and service !!
Simon says so !

Very authentic atmosphere and great food. We ordered the lamb chops with couscous and they were so soft and succulent. Then we ordered the duck with figs and parsnips. The duck was also very good but the lamb chops were our favorite. Service was great and we felt very welcomed.

This was pretty good! The Moroccan lentil soup was a fantastic start and the service was pretty swift. The chicken tfaya was really tasty and loved everything on the bed of cous cous. The owner and waitress were really kind and accommodated 15 of us for a birthday. To finish, drink the Moroccan mint tea! Of everything it was my favorite item on the menu and provided a solid finish to the meal.

So I went here last week for a birthday dinner, and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it is a definitive warning when something is amiss with the restaurant bathroom. In this case, it just happened to be a men’s room toilet with the top from the back of the tank completely off and sitting on the floor next to the toilet covered in pee. Oh yeah, and toilet was also filled to the brim with pee and didn’t flush. Of course, this was just the guys bathroom, but by midway through dinner the girls was just the same! Not pretty!!!
I decided to have an appetizer, and after a lengthy wait, my appetizer arrived. I have to say that the appetizer was decent, but the hour+ wait following the appetizer before dinner arrived was not-​so-​decent. i especially felt bad for the other people at my table that didn’t have an appetizer and just wanted their meal. During this long wait, I was asked by the waitress if I wanted a second glass of wine to follow up after my first. Even though I said yes at that point, my glass didn’t arrive until I was done with dinner. Much like the appetizer, the food was actually decent.
So the best part (cue sarcasm here) is when dinner was finally over. After sitting there for the better part of an hour and asking for the check multiple times (albeit with a pretty empty restaurant), the check finally came. During this time, they kept telling us, «She’s writing the check now» or something like that, and that there were a lot of items. We started thinking they were doing individual checks for every member of the dozen or so group, and couldn’t figure out what took so long. Then this check comes that looks like it was straight out of a 1990’s diner and every little tiny thing was hand written from meals to prices, etc. First of all, what restaurant in NYC in this day and age doesn’t have a functioning POS system? Second, even if it was handwritten, it could have been done quicker by a caveman with a tablet (the old kind. lol).
So we give the payment, and guess what? It was no surprise, we waited about ANOTHER HALF HOUR just to get our credit cards back. I don’t know how a place like this could even stay open in NYC. I for one, will never go back. The food was good, but with that kind of wait & bad service, and the disgusting bathroom issue, its was enough to turn me away for good. Thank god everyone in our group was there and it was all good company, because that was really the only thing I was happy about that night! If you have ¹⁄₈ of day to spend at a restaurant, then I recommend it. Otherwise, follow my lead.

Food rates 4.5 but the service was painfully slow. Now, I like Middle Eastern flavors and I am prepared for a leisurely meal. However, we arrived a 5, got our appetizers at 545 and main courses showed up an hour after that.
The food was very tasty. Juicy lamb and chicken tajine, smoky and multilayered flavors on the cigars and meat balls. Totally recommend this place if you gave 3 – 4 hours for your meal to unfold.

Completely underwhelmed by my experience at Zerza. I came here on a cold and rainy night with my boyfriend with a reservation I booked on Opentable. The restaurant was pretty empty, and we were promptly seated. To drink I had the Sangria, which was tasty, while my boyfriend had a glass of wine. To start we shared the fried feta cheese which was definitely the best thing I had on the menu. For my main course I had the chicken kebabs which were completely flavorless. My date had the meatballs which he said were tasty.
All in all I would not be back to Zerza as the food left me completely underwhelmed. Maybe if they had a belly dancer or something exotic I would be more inclined to return?

Had the duck tangine and chicken Bastille … They were both amazing… The duck was so tender it fell off the bone. Def must stop in! Oh and get the spinach cigars for the appetizer … Also super yummy!!!

Food was good. We shared salad and small plates and it was good we didn’t order an entrée.
The service was OK, the atmosphere almost OK.

Came here for 2014 Valentine’s day for the $ 40 pp 4-​course special, which was definitely worth it.
Soups: We had both the Lentil and Harira soup. They were both good. The lentil was too filling, so we ended up leaving some. the Harira was more light and appetizing.
Appetizer:
Goat Cheese Cigars: Not as much cheese as I expected. It basically looks like a form of spring roll. It’s alright, but I am not impressed.
Moroccan Beef Meatballs: I was expecting them to knock my socks off, but they are just alright. They are pretty beefy and not highly processed or anything.
Entrée:
Chermoula Salmon: It’s decent salmon & cous cous and there is nothing to complain about. I couldn’t really taste the chermoula rubbing, though. It could just be me.
Lamb Tagine: Definitely the best dish we had here. It is a solid choice at any Moroccan restaurant, I suppose!
Desserts: The baklava was too sweet, so i started eating it with the fig ice cream and that made everything perfect…
Also… there was belly dancing which involved some audience participation, mostly having women dance. There was a male participant who was met with much applause. The dancing (and candle-​balancing) lasted quite a long time and definitely makes you feel like your visit was worthwhile. I do believe they have this on a regular schedule every night.
If you’re not keen on the Valentine’s day «specials» that have you spend more than you usually would, then this is a good one for you. Also you will eat more than you would if there wasn’t a pre-​fixe menu, but it is totally worth it.

*** I am Moroccan *** this is the best Moroccan food I’ve had in NYC.
Now that it’s out there I have to say Zerza is Excellent.
I went for Valentines and had the 4 courses.
The harira soup: this is a staple for us. The soup at zerza is delicious! It’s very fresh, the tomato base was extremely fresh, the tomato purée was from fresh tomatoes. The soup was lightly aromatic and deliciously spiced.
The lamb meatballs. This was an incredibly simple but delicious dish.
Buttery meatballs, in a saffron and light cumin sauce in a base of savory onion and tomato.
The lamb and dried apricot was AMAZING. This was extremely tender and perfectly buttery. Expertly cooked. A very large portion by any standards. The sauce was perfectly caramelized and sweet but buttery with hints if saffron, ginger and turmeric.
The mint tea was real. As real as it gets, real sweet Moroccan mint tea with a blend if black gunpowder tea and fresh mint.
For 40 $ a person, this meal was a steal and put a lot of very pretentious establishments to shame.
The depth of flavor and the balance is excellent.

Zerza was awesome! I went with my friend for a late dinner, and my first taste of Moroccan food.
It is a cute little restaurant that is decorated nicely. Very intimate setting. The service was fast enough.
We both really enjoyed our meals– I had lamb, which was extremely tender. However, the drinks were quite pricey and rather weak.

My first encounter with Moroccan food!
7 tips for you:
— though you may have heard the rave reviews on the chicken bastille, skip it. It is a unique sweet and savory dish, but the cinnamon, powdered sugar, and honey make it a little too sweet, and the chicken and pastry came out a little dry.
— try the short rib. Tender and flavorful!
— you may or may not want to scout out a Groupon like we did (about 50% off for 2 tapas and 2 glasses of wine).
— don’t expect it to be hustling and bustling in here. Rather, we were one of two tables during a Friday dinner service.
— if you want to try a few different flavors, there’s a combo appetizer plate that includes hummus, baba ghanouj, and a spinach like dip with pita wedges. It didn’t blow us away, but held our appetites over til our main entrees came.
— friendly service.
— if you check in on Unilocal or Foursquare, you can get a complimentary scoop of fig ice cream.