"It's always been my dream to have my own restaurant," Touria Lamtahaf told Hell Gate last week, taking a quick break from frantic iftar prep on the 15th evening of Ramadan.
"Even as a little girl, I cooked for all the big family parties we had back in Marrakesh," the chef said. "In Morocco everyone eats the same things. But it's the feeling you have when you're cooking that makes the difference. When you love something, and you do it with heart, it shows."
This is very good news for Astoria residents, who temporarily lost access to Lamtahaf's terrific tagines when Dar Yemma, where she cooked on and off during that restaurant's brief, tumultuous reign on Steinway Street, shut down for good in 2023. Although the longtime Astorian has plenty going on in her life—catering jobs and two young kids at home—when a space opened up near her apartment, she jumped at the opportunity to open her own restaurant. And so we get Dar Lbahja, "House of Happiness," on 30th Avenue.