The Transformational Power of the Right Spice "There's an eschatological thrill to walking into La Boîte, a shop wedged between an auto-repair garage and a dismal fenced-in garden on the far west side of Midtown Manhattan," Alex Halberstadt wrote in The New York Times. La Boîte belongs to Lior Lev Sercarz who describes himself as a "spice therapist," and considers "spices to be both a vocation and a mission," Mr. Halberstadt wrote. "The spices he laid out smelled and tasted nothing like the time-forgotten powders in my pantry," he wrote, even the simple black peppercorn at the shop, which came from Tellicherry, on India's Malabar Coast, "tasted smokier and more complex than I remembered."