Taim.(Einat Admony)

When a restaurateur with crossover dreams tries to make gourmet food "street," the trick can seem cynical: at Spice Market, his take on the cuisine of Southeast-Asian peddlers, for instance, Jean-Georges Vongerichten reaches into his hat and pulls out a spring roll for nine-fifty. But "take street food, and make it gourmet," as Einat Admony, the chef at Taim, a falafel shop in the West Village, says she aims to do, and the result is elating. Her gussied-up chickpeas feel like a steal to the same degree that Vongerichten's dressed-down lobster feels like a cheat.

Admony, a veteran of a million venerable kitchens around the city, met Stefan Nafziger, her co-owner and husband, in 2001. She was working at Danube; he was a manager at Bouley. When they decided, two years ago, to go out on their own, the idea was to recall the beloved snacks of her native Tel Aviv without sacrificing technique. And so there they are every day, jammed into a three-hundred-square-foot storefront (that includes the kitchen), chopping parsley for tabbouleh, grinding spices, slicing potatoes for their excellent homemade French fries. (Dip them in the saffron aioli and acknowledge the inadequacy of ketchup once and forever.) Admony makes ...