GUILDERLAND — Moroccan restaurant Tara Kitchen is coming to Guilderland. 

It will be the third restaurant owned by Aneesa Waheed and her husband, Muntasim Shoaib, following their eateries in downtown Schenectady and Troy. 

Waheed hopes to open early next year. The Guilderland restaurant, she said, will be “a replica” of the Schenectady and Troy locations. 

The restaurant will be at the site of the former Paesan’s Pizza, which moved to 1799-1803 Western Ave. last year. 

Waheed is originally from India and moved to Schenectady with her family when she was 16. She and her Pakistani husband met in Morocco. “Tara” means “star” in her native language, Hindi, she said. 

The couple opened a store in 2008 in Schenectady selling imports from India and Morocco, but had more success, amid the economic downturn, as food vendors at Schenectady’s Greenmarket and the Troy farmers’ market. Offering the Moroccan food that the couple enjoyed at home brought greater success, and in 2012 they opened a restaurant in downtown Schenectady. 

This was followed a year later by a line of original jarred sauces that they now sell throughout the Northeast — including at Price Chopper and the Honest Weight Food Coop — and a year after that, by a second restaurant, in downtown Troy. 

The restaurant’s website describes the food this way: “Aneesa creates exotic yet accessible dishes — from fragrant tagines to delicious couscous — infused with the complex blend of spices and ingredients unique to Moroccan food.”

In addition to the restaurant in Guilderland, Waheed is also planning to open the area’s first Moroccan hammam spa, in downtown Schenectady. A hammam is a spa that includes a relaxing steam room and spa services such as massage.