A BIT OF TEXAS IN NEW YORK

Texas-style kosher barbecue is suddenly smokin’ in New York

“It’s something we don’t often see in our tradition, and people are responding to that,” Emanuel Masheyev, of Chief Smokehouse, told JNS. 

 

By Anna Rahmanan

 

JNS

Jan 28, 2025 

 

 

On a typical barbecue menu in Houston or Dallas, even the vegetables are likely to come with pork, and a “veggie side” choice might include “more meat” as an option. But as rabbinic tradition states, for every unkosher taste in the world, there is a corresponding one that is permissible under Jewish law.

At a time when many staunchly Orthodox men are increasingly taking on smoking meats as a hobby, Texas-style kosher barbecue restaurants seem to be warming up to New York City.

Chief Smokehouse, which opened in Fresh Meadows, Queens, in October 2024, serves menu staples like brisket, burnt ends, tongue, burgers and tacos in a no-frills space with some 10 tables. 

Its “meat candy” consists of “maple glazed beef bacon strips, Richie’s burnt ends, hot-honey pepperoni slices, pickled sauce and bread slices on the side.” (The pepperoni is beef, and the mac and cheese on the menu is soy-based.)

Emanuel Masheyev, who founded the restaurant, told JNS that the appeal is that “it is a new way of looking at meat.”

“It’s something we don’t often see in our tradition,” he told JNS. “People are responding to that.”

Masheyev’s eatery joins a New York barbecue market that includes Izzy’s Brooklyn Smokehouse, which opened in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn in the summer of 2015 and a second location on the Upper West Side in Manhattan in early 2021, as well as Graze Smokehouse on the Upper West Side, which opened in 2019. (Graze also has locations inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and in Cedarhurst, which opened before the COVID-19 pandemic.)

 

  

Izzy Eidelman, “pit master” at Izzy’s Brooklyn Smokehouse. 

 

Among the menu items at Izzy’s are pulled beef egg rolls, pulled beef empanadas, burnt ends, dino ribs, burgers and Thai sticky ribs, with sides that include smoked beans and candied sweet potatoes. Per its site, Izzy’s “brings a local twist to a Southern tradition, combining simple ingredients with quality meats to create a unique and laid-back dining experience for the barbecue lover.”

Izzy Eidelman, the “pit master,” wasn’t available, but his mother, Sarah Eidelman, who works at all of the restaurant’s locations, told JNS that “New York is the center of everything.”

“We have kosher Chinese, kosher Italian, kosher Mexican, even kosher Japanese,” she said. “Why not Texas-style barbecue?”

Rabbi Jason Miller, a technology entrepreneur in the Detroit area who founded the 15-year-old Kosher Michigan certification agency, told JNS that kosher-observant Jews are moving to Texas from New York and New Jersey.

“They see their neighbors go to all these barbecue joints, and they want kosher barbecue, too,” Miller said. “Then they bring the trend to other major cities, where there is a larger kosher-eating population to begin with.”

Interest in kosher barbecue might relate to “an uptick of high-end and trendy kosher dining options,” according to Rachel Tepper Paley, digital managing editor at Wine Enthusiast.

“Certainly kosher diners in the Big Apple are on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram,” she told JNS. “Watching what the rest of the city is eating—it makes sense that they want in.”

 

Sruli Eidelman, owner of the popular Izzy's Brooklyn Smokehouse, will open a new Mexican restaurant next door. 

 

Miller, who officiates at bar and bat mitzvahs and weddings, has found himself traveling to do so more often in Austin, Dallas and Houston.

“I have been doing this for 20 years and, in the past three, I found myself going to Texas at least once a month,” he told JNS.

“There is certainly a kosher barbecue craze not just in New York but everywhere,” he said. “What you’re also seeing are established kosher restaurants that are starting to offer kosher barbecue brisket and stuff like that.”

Tepper Paley thinks that kosher barbecue isn’t as unusual as some might think in the New York area.

“There’s a rich community of Jews in the southern United States who have perfected the art of kosher barbecue,” she said. “The fact that beef brisket is already a cornerstone of non-kosher barbecue helps, too.”

“It’s an existing tradition that doesn’t involve pork, so kosher barbecue spots don’t need to completely reinvent the wheel,” she said.