KUTSHER’S TRIBECA – NYC
186 Franklin St. (at Greenwich St.) New York, NY 10013
Rating: 7.8
Photo courtesy of: www.nytimes.com
Living in New York, it’s hard to avoid the influence and presence of Jewish food. Some is excellent but might involve standing in line for 30 minutes to get your perfect bagel and lox or brisket and some you would really rather avoid altogether.
Kutsher’s the restaurant takes the best of Jewish culinary culture and does it up right. The name Kutsher’s comes from the 100 -year old Kutsher’s Country Club in the Catskills – the hot destination for Jewish families in the ’60’s and ’70’s. The Kutsher’s website has lots of fun facts about the original resort but the idea was to recreate the culture in a modern Jewish American Bistro. The airy and spacious dining room is meant to evoke 1960’s minimalist with its modern clean lines.
At Kutsher’s they hand select their ingredients from the best places across the city and put them all under one simply elegant roof. Chef Thomas Higuchi-Crowll cures and smokes his pastrami meats daily which makes for the freshest sandwiches and charcuterie platters. The only problem with the menu is that everything looks delicious. This resulted in ordering two kinds of potatoes.
Some friends and I were graciously hosted by our friend Zach Chodorow at Kutsher’s for brunch one day to welcome a friend home from London.
We started with some potato latkes with apple compote and sour cream. These were almost as good as the class moms’ latkes who came in to make them for us during Hanukkah in 5th grade.
Potato Latkes
We also couldn’t resist the duck schmaltz fries which came highly recommended by Zach. He was definitely right. These are amazing.
Duck Schmaltz Fries
To cut the grease a bit we had the assortment of pickled vegetables. This mixture included a colorful mix of veggies as well as half sour and salty full sour pickles (my favorite).
Pickled Vegetables
Next was the bagel that was piled high with nova lox, red onion, tomato and a garlicky avocado dressing. This is an enormous sandwich and definitely requires a partner in crime.
Bagel with Lox
Coming in for the close up...
Someone else at the table ordered the Leo with egg whites which was nova lox with onions and potato hash (yes, yet another potato variation, I see that now).
The Leo
For our dessert portion of the meal we had the cheese blintzes which were drizzled with a three berry compote and served with sour cream. These were creamy and rich without being too sweet and much better than any blintz I have every had.
Cheese Blintzes
To top it all off we had to have an egg cream. But we couldn’t decide on chocolate or vanilla so we ordered both. Obviously.
Johanna sampling both egg creams...
Come home soon Johanna!
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