Middle Eastern Restaurant Near Me in the Village: Kubeh's Dumpling Soups

Kubeh is named after a single dish, the Kurdish, Iraqi and Syrian dumpling boiled in broth, and it has served bowls of them at 464 Sixth Avenue, between West 11th and 12th Streets in Greenwich Village, since July 2017. A soup of hand-formed dumplings costs $23, dinner starts at 5pm every night, and the restaurant holds part of its tables back for people who walk in. For anyone searching middle eastern restaurant near me around Washington Square, it is the one place built around a dumpling.

Chef-owner Melanie Shurka is a native New Yorker of Israeli-Iranian and Ashkenazi descent who taught herself to cook at home. According to the restaurant's own history, she studied law in Tel Aviv, worked front-of-house at Balthazar and Ladurée, and tested her soups at kubeh pop-ups before opening this room with her husband, David Ort. The New York Times reviewed it within days of the July 2017 opening, and NPR followed that August.

The attention never quite went away. Michelin gave Kubeh a Bib Gourmand on October 30, 2018, the guide's mark for good-value cooking. In 2020 Shurka won an episode of Food Network's Chopped and gave the $10,000 prize to UNICEF, and in July 2024 she cooked on Alex vs America. The Jewish news agency JTA put the restaurant on its 2023 list of 25 Jewish dishes to eat in New York.

The room is small and personal. When the Village Voice reviewed it in August 2017, the critic described Syrian coffeepots and Israeli metal-plate hangings on the walls and a gold Iranian samovar that sits above the bartenders. Seating is split three ways on Resy: a bar, an indoor dining room and an outdoor café on the Sixth Avenue sidewalk, which is the best seat on a mild October evening.

Getting here is simple. The 14th Street station at Sixth Avenue, served by the F at all times and the M on weekdays, has entrances at the northeast and northwest corners of 14th Street, a two- to three-block walk north. The same station complex links to the 1, 2 and 3 lines, the L train and PATH, so Kubeh works for New Jersey commuters too.

The current dinner menu, labelled Summer 2026 on the restaurant's site, offers two dumpling soups at $23 each. The Kurdish Siske kubeh wraps slow-cooked beef in dough. The Iraqi vegetable kubeh is filled with mushrooms and is fully vegan. Each comes in a choice of two broths: Hamusta, a sour green soup of Swiss chard, zucchini and lemon, or a golden Persian chicken and rice soup. First-timers should order the Hamusta, because the lemon is the point.

The fried kubeh, $15, is the crisp version, stuffed with ground beef, cinnamon and pine nuts. A June 2026 diner on Trip.com called them warm and rich with a homemade feel. Spreads are $14 each, and the muhammara, the Syrian red pepper and walnut dip, is the one to pick if you only choose one, alongside the hummus and labneh.

Bigger plates run from kofta of lamb and beef over butternut squash and pistachio purée at $20 to a braised lamb shank at $49 and a whole branzino at $44. Tahdig, the crunchy Persian rice crust, is $11, and Safta's Rice, a vegan and gluten-free plate named for a grandmother, is $29. Weekend brunch from 11am to 4pm adds a $19 shakshuka.

The bar matters more than it looks. Cocktails run $17 to $19, and the list includes arak and Israeli and Persian beers. Happy hour from 5pm to 7pm every day cuts beer to $8, wine to $9 and cocktails to $10, which makes an early soup and a drink the cheapest way to try the place.

Kubeh says it always tries to hold part of the indoor and outdoor rooms for walk-ins, and its reservations page tells guests to drop by even when Resy shows the night as booked. Resy lists a 15-minute grace period and tables held for about an hour and a half. Arriving right at 5pm, during happy hour, gives a walk-in the best odds.

Larger parties have firm rules. The restaurant can seat up to 22 at one table, but groups of ten or more must order a family-style prix fixe, and a 20 percent gratuity is added for parties of six or more and for every table on holidays. Plan around that before you invite the whole office.

Resy files Kubeh under Good for Groups, Women-Operated and Best of Brunch, and a November 2025 diner called it perfect for a casual weeknight date. Vegan diners are regulars too: HappyCow reviewers in 2023 and 2024 praised how clearly the vegan dishes are marked. Put together, that means date-night couples, brunch groups and plant-based eaters sharing the same small room.

Not everything is equally good. A 2021 review on Travelsort called the chicken shawarma plate the least interesting dish of the meal, which tracks: you came for dumplings, so order them. A November 2024 HappyCow reviewer also flagged smaller portions and higher prices, so treat the $23 soup as a meal and add a $14 spread rather than a second main. If the room is full and you will not wait, Moustache Pitza at 29 Seventh Avenue South serves Middle Eastern pitzas and lahmajun a ten-minute walk south.

Directly across Sixth Avenue stands Jefferson Market Library at 425 Avenue of the Americas, a red-brick Victorian Gothic courthouse turned branch of the New York Public Library. It is open Monday to Thursday 10am to 8pm, Friday and Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 1pm to 5pm, so a weeknight walk-in can step inside before the soup.

Two blocks west, Three Lives & Company at 154 West 10th Street is one of the Village's best-loved independent bookstores, in business on its corner of West 10th Street for decades. A loop from the library down Greenwich Avenue to West 10th Street and back up Sixth Avenue takes about fifteen minutes on foot.

Kubeh, 464 Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas), New York, NY 10011, between West 11th and 12th Streets. Dinner Sunday to Thursday 5pm to 10pm, Friday and Saturday 5pm to 10:30pm. Brunch Saturday and Sunday 11am to 4pm, happy hour daily 5pm to 7pm. Book on Resy or by phone, and walk-ins are welcome. Full bar. Groups of ten or more order a family-style prix fixe; 20 percent gratuity for six or more. Nearest subway: 14 St (F, M), linked to the 1, 2, 3 and L.