Top-Rated Palestinian Restaurant from NYC Expands to Richardson, Bringing Authentic Middle Eastern Flavors to Texas

Ayat is a Palestinian restaurant with sites in Brooklyn, the East Village of Manhattan, Princeton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In just a few months, it will open in Richardson.

Abdul Elenani, the owner, said in an Instagram post that he came to Dallas almost two weeks ago to help a friend turn their burger cart into a shopfront. A real estate agent he met in town showed him around a few places. He signed a lease the next thing he knew.

She says, “I never thought I’d be opening a place across the country.” “It was meant to be because I told him I’d take any price.” No, really. Elenani says that he didn’t actually check to see what the market rate was until the next day. He had never been to Dallas before this trip.

Yes, Richardson already has a lot of restaurants that call themselves Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, or halal, as well as a lot of places that serve food from Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. But Ayat will be Richardson’s first Palestinian restaurant, and Elenani wants to use that as a chance to show off traditional and underappreciated foods from the area. Some of the most common foods in the Middle East are hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, falafel, shawarma, and kebabs, he says. In Texas, you’ll be able to order traditional Palestinian dishes like m sakhan (fresh taboon bread with sautéed onions, sumac, pine nuts, and a half chicken), fattat jaj (six-layer dish with roasted chicken, rice, chickpeas, mint yoghurt, crispy pita, garlic sauce, and slivered almonds), Mansaf (bone-in lamb chunks in a stew with fermented yoghurt sauce served over a bed of fresh sajj bread and rice), and more.

Elenani says, “Many restaurants don’t serve these dishes because they’re not always available.”

Elenani says that people who want to know more about Ayat should know this: “Number one: we are all about what’s happening in Palestine, dealing with the occupation through peace and love, and trying to bring people together to stop this crap with hatred.”

The restaurant has made it a goal to teach people about Palestine and how Jews, Muslims, and Christians have lived together peacefully in the Gaza Strip for generations because of its “holy connection to our religions.” His question is, “What has been going on for the last 76 years? We’ve always gotten along.” “This shouldn’t be making all this trouble in the world, so why is it?” It’s not right.

In other places, that educational promise meant putting basic geographical and cultural information and history of Palestine on the menu. But Elenani says he has no idea what it will mean in Texas. He says, “I only do what feels right.” “The things I say make people in my own country angry.” What did he say to those people? “Shut the fuck up…” It’s as easy as getting along. No matter if you are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, let’s get rid of any government that will rule over any people. In general, Elenani and Ayat do not back Hamas, he says. “All we care about is getting along in peace.”

Eater New York says that after the conflict in Gaza in October 2023, Ayat got a lot of one-star reviews on Google and Yelp.

Elenani says that Ayat’s halal meat providers will start sending meat to Texas to get ready for the restaurant. According to him, the restaurant will be open in three to four months. He has already found and hired a removal crew to clean the space he rented to do the renovations.

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