Explore New York City's eight-best Jewish eateries

19.09.2023 - 00:25 / bbc.com

Few places are as synonymous with Jewish food as New York City. Manhattan's Lower East Side neighbourhood served as a culinary cauldron when it was home to the largest Jewish community in the world in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, blending centuries of diasporic gastronomic knowledge.

It was here that Jews with roots in modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia and Romania merged their spices and tastes with German and Hungarian Jews and their Gentile neighbours. This blending of recipes created Jewish-American cuisine as we know it today – think bagels with lox and schmear (cream cheese-based spreads), pastrami, matzo ball soup and loaves of freshly baked babka bread oozing with cinnamon or chocolate.

The Jewish culinary pioneers of the early 20th Century have created institutions that are must-see stops on any foodie's visit to the city. The stacks of pastrami at Katz's Delicatessen, the smoked whitefish of Barney Greengrass and bagels with lox and schmear from Russ & Daughters are legendary juggernauts.

But here we're highlighting the lesser-known denizens of Jewish food history and the new era of sandwich slingers who are maintaining New York City as the epicentre of Jewish-American cuisine.

1.      Shalom Japan

Japanese and Jewish cuisine might not seem like natural partners. But it takes just one bowl of Shalom Japan's matzo ball ramen with garlicky chilli oil built on a foundation of chicken broth with char siu chicken, spring onions and nori to change anyone's mind. Suddenly, dishes like their lox bowl with sushi rice, ikura (salmon caviar), avocado, Japanese pickles, fried capers and chilli mayo make complete sense.

Married co-owners, Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi, play off their respective heritages to create a truly one-of-a-kind experience at this Williamsburg eatery. There's a chic izakaya (Japanese tavern) vibe marked with tasteful Jewish kitsch – like the photo from a 1960s ad showing a Japanese boy holding a sandwich next to a bag of Levy's Jewish Rye bread with a message reading, "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's real Jewish Rye".

Fortunately, travellers can now recreate their Shalom Japan experience at home through Israel and Okochi's cookbook, Love Japan: Recipes From Our Japanese American Kitchen.

Website: www.shalomjapannyc.com
Address: 310 S 4th St, Brooklyn
Phone: +1-718-388-4012
Instagram: @shalomjapan

2. Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery

For those in the know, the name Yonah Schimmel is synonymous with knish – the once-beloved Ashkenazi snack of baked dough stuffed with potatoes, kasha (buckwheat), onions and spices. These are hearty, dense snacks on-the-go with roots in the Pale of Settlement (modern-day Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Ukraine, eastern