A Foodie Trend in Crown Heights

By COLlive reporter

Brooklyn native freelance writer Hilary Danailova wrote for the Hadassah Magazine about New York’s iconic Brooklyn borough as “the Most Jewish Spot on Earth.”

Naturally, some ink was given to the Crown Heights neighborhood – home to the worldwide headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch movement, “whose members migrated en masse from Europe after the war and stayed through the upheavals of 20th-century urban life.”

Danailova mentions how tributes to the Rebbe are visible around the neighborhood and how Chabad “embraces global travel and modern technology, a departure from other Hasidic sects.”

Specifically, with Shluchim “posted in 92 foreign countries as well as across the United States coming and going, the movement’s cosmopolitanism is reflected in a burgeoning restaurant scene.”

The kosher foodie revolution, meanwhile, is centered in bustling Crown Heights, she writes. Stylish new boîtes—all strictly kosher, of course—have popped up across Crown Heights.

ALENbi, for example, is a modern Israeli eatery where the walls are subway tile and entrées feature ingredients such as freekeh and lemon dust, she writes.

Jerusalem-born Yuda Schlass and his partner, Elior Balbul, aim to elevate Israeli cuisine to a new level of refinement, Danailova writes.

​”It’s hard to tell Hasids from hipsters now,” commented Danny Branover, a Soviet-born Israeli Lubavitcher who owns several upscale kosher eateries in Crown Heights.

When he opened Basil, an Italian dairy restaurant, in 2010 on “the wrong side of Eastern Parkway,” as he put it, doubters said he’d never fill the tables.

Now Basil is packed nightly, while a crop of young, elite chefs draws foodies from across New York to hot spots like Izzy’s BBQ Smokehouse (“best kosher barbecue in town”) and Boeuf & Bun (“great place to grab an artisanal burger”).

But Crown Heights is also home to more traditional kosher foods such as shmurah matzah, “the Passover staple distinguished from everyday Manischewitz by a near-obsessive level of rabbinic supervision (shmurah means watched). ”

The writer recommends taking a peek at the 18-minute process, along with tasty souvenirs, at the Lubavitch Matzah Bakery (718-778-7914) on Albany Avenue in Crown Heights.