Masala y Maíz

Norma Listman and Saqib Keval dreamed of a restaurant that could tackle colonization and worker injustice through the food it served. “Then all of a sudden [the dream] took over in a beautiful way,” says Listman. They found similarities among the food cultures of South Asia, East Africa and Mexico, and combined the Mexican and Indian cuisines of their families to create an exploration of mestizaje, the cultural blending that resulted from shared histories of trade, migration and colonization, through inventive foods like Indian uttapam made of fermented rice, chickpeas and blue-corn masa, served with a fried egg. In September they’re moving to a new location in the city—“a beautiful and weird space,” says Keval—designed by artist Pedro Reyes. The menu is “an opportunity to give voice to cultures that are usually hidden,” Listman says. —Merrill Fabry