This is best new Fresno restaurant of 2024, according to poll. Try the steak, owner says
The Fresno Bee asked readers to pick the best new local restaurant of 2024 and their choice was loud and clear: Zaatar Bistro.
The Mediterranean — specifically Lebanese — restaurant in north Fresno won in a landslide with 47% of the vote.
The runners-up included Olive Tree Mediterranean, vegan spot Rappit Up!, Smash Bros Bistro and Main Street Burgers.
Regular readers may have caught our April profile of Zaatar, the restaurant run by three brothers. It’s a little different than a typical Fresno Mediterranean eatery (there are no kebabs on the menu, or any rice pilaf, for example).
At Shepherd Avenue and Champlain Drive in the Via Montana shopping center, Zaatar is a sit-down, full-service restaurant.
The name of the restaurant comes from the spice blend za’atar. Here, it includes dried thyme, sesame seeds, sumac, salt and olive oil.
When Zaatar opened early in the year, it served breakfast, brunch and lunch. That includes fried pita bread, hummus with diced steak, and American options such as egg dishes, omelets and burgers.
Since then, the restaurant has been flourishing — and added dinner three nights a week.
Badih Nassar — you can call him Buddy — has been in the restaurant business for 20 years and still has his restaurant back in Lebanon, where he’s from. He and brothers Roy and Rabih “Robby” Nassar run Zaatar.
“Whenever you’re a hard worker and you have a plan and you have a tight family, the restaurant always should be in a very positive place — and that’s what happened with Zaatar,” he said this week.
Dinner at Zaatar
Now, dinner is from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays.
Some of the breakfast items are still on the menu in the evenings, including the Chef’s Favas. It’s made with black fava beans and chickpeas in a lemon olive oil sauce with pita bread. He kept it on the dinner menu, a fact that’s amusing to Nassar because in Lebanon it’s a breakfast dish that no one would order in the evenings, but his customers here love it.
The top seller for dinner is a whole deboned chicken that’s charbroiled on the grill. A burger patty filled with cheese is also popular.
But as for Nassar, he goes for the steak.
“My favorite is a steak because I’m a meat lover,” he said.
It’s a prime cut of beef marinated Lebanese style and served with spicy fresh-baked pita bread and salad.
Nassar said he is thankful for the support of Fresnans.
“We always keep working as if it was the first day, putting all the love, all the passion in the business,” he said. “We try to keep it close to perfection as possible. People in Fresno, they deserve that.”
Details: Zaatar Bistro is at 1568 E. Champlain Drive, suite 105. Reservations can be made online (though the website is being updated and the function may be temporarily unavailable) or by calling 559-388-8553.
