Top 10 Best Manhattan Kosher Restaurants (Updated 2025)
While several cities around the globe, such as Lakewood, Miami, Paris, and Jerusalem, offer an exciting and dynamic kosher restaurant landscape, Manhattan is still the mecca of kosher food. After all, “the city that never sleeps” has deep roots in Jewish immigrants settling in Manhattan at the beginning of the 20th century and also being at the “center of it all,” thereby driving restaurant growth. Still, because commerce and tourism propel so much of the activity in New York City’s most active borough, it is subject to the inevitable upswings and downturns that come with economic cycles and other events that affect the restaurant sector. However, Manhattan (and its sister borough, Brooklyn) has persevered through it all.
In honor of such a magnificent city that we hope has many more years of success ahead, we present the top 10 best Manhattan kosher restaurants. Our ranking has something for everyone, including a spot for a solid New York-style slice of kosher pizza and high-end fine-dining options.
Of course, in a city like Manhattan, we have some bonus entrants beyond the top 10, as the city is overflowing with impressive kosher restaurants.
Barnea Bistro
Best Fine Dining Nouveau Bistro (Meat)
Midtown East
As a chef-owned and operated restaurant, Barnea Bistro stands apart from many peers in the fine-dining category. Focused on seasonal ingredients, Chef Josh Kessler runs an ever-evolving menu in an open-kitchen concept, another rarity in the kosher restaurant world. After all, there is something magical about watching the chef and staff create culinary masterpieces as you enjoy the ambiance of an equally unique, thoughtfully designed dining room. Standout menu items include lamb riblets, duck risotto, short rib gnocchi, and pavlova for dessert. The bar also offers a host of unique craft cocktails. Chef Kessler also previously ran Bonito, which has since closed.
Reserve Cut
Best Fine Dining Steakhouse
Financial District
A renowned fine-dining kosher steakhouse in the Financial District, Reserve Cut offers French-Asian fusion, including sushi & Wagyu beef. Owned and operated by Albert Allaham, the Owner also runs the high-end butcher shop The Prime Cut in the Sephardic neighborhood of Gravesend, Brooklyn, NY. It’s unsurprising, then, that Allaham comes from a Syrian family with deep roots in fine meats, to the point that the family ran one of the most respected butcher shops in Damascus, Syria. In a sign of growth, Reserve Cut recently purchased part of the building they occupy at 40 Broad Street for a whopping $18 million. Excitingly, Reserve Cut has opened a new location on Park Avenue.
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Sen Sakhana
Best Asian Fusion Fine Dining
Times Square
Sen Sakhana offers a unique cuisine called “Nikkei, “a mix of Japanese and Peruvian flavors. This unique, non-intuitive combination stems from the Japanese expat community in Peru. As we wrote about when it became kosher, Sen Sakhana was initially an acclaimed non-kosher restaurant that subsequently became kosher-certified.
Abaita
Best Fine Dining (Dairy)
Midtown East
Abaita means “the home” in Hebrew and pays homage to the “comfort food” on offer and the ethos behind the restaurant, namely to be a welcoming place for enjoying great rustic Italian kosher dairy specialties. The menu offers a mix of pasta, fish, and wood-fired pizza. Still, the quality and preparation of the dishes set Abaita apart from many other kosher Italian restaurants. There are so many great dishes at Abaita. Favorites include the heirloom tomato salad, Tunisian olives with labneh and garlic confit, cacio e pepe, black fettuccine, wood-fired oven-roasted lasagna, artichoke pizza, and, for dessert, the Abaita apple cake with honey syrup and crème fraiche.
Mr. Broadway
Best For A Casual Business Lunch
Garment District
For decades, Mr. Broadway has been a fixture for Midtown kosher observant businesses and tourists alike. It recently moved from its Broadway location between West 37th and 38th Street to 209 West 38th Street off of 7th Avenue (the previous home of Ben’s Deli). Mr. Broadway’s menu has the usual suspects, overstuffed deli sandwiches, plus more surprising items, like a non-dairy chicken “parm.”
Le Marais
Best For Classic French Steakhouse
Times Square/Theater District
Right off Times Square (on West 46th Street off 7th Avenue) and a block from the Theater District, Le Marais is the quintessential New York Steakhouse. A mainstay of the NYC kosher diner, the menu offers classics at a more modest price point than its peers. Whether it is a business lunch or a family dinner after a Broadway show, Le Marais is comforting in both its classic fare and its price.
Mocha Burger
Best For A Burger
Union Square & Times Square
Previously located off West Houston Street and a few blocks from the storied MacDougal Street, the bustling artsy cafe and comedy club-lined Street in the West Village, Mocha Burger now has two locations: one near Union Square and one near Times Square. While the name “Mocha” for a burger shop was always peculiar, the “sit-down” waiter-served spot offers solid burgers, great wings, impressive steaks, and fun craft cocktails.
Bravo Pizza
Best Pizza
Midtown
Bravo Pizza is one of those unique success stories of a formerly non-kosher restaurant becoming kosher and seeing great success. Some locations, such as the original kosher one in Midtown, still make excellent pizza. While the location has taken a hit in quality over the last few years, we previously included it as a contender for gold in our ranking of the best kosher pizza. In contrast, others, like the one downtown, are not so great, and the Brooklyn location is somewhere in the middle. The Midtown location was originally on Broadway between West 36th and 37th Streets, but it later moved off Broadway. It is now at 378 5th Ave, between West 35th and 36th Streets. Bravo Midtown has some unique slices, including tuna (and previously even mock crab), and the eggplant slice is excellent, too.
Note: Bravo Pizza is a chain with numerous locations; only some are kosher.
B&H Dairy
Best Old School Diner (Dairy)
East Village
Opened in 1937, B&H Dairy is a bygone-era establishment that has somehow defied the odds and stayed in business. Whether it was intermittent closures, such as due to a gas explosion, a stolen cash register, ownership changes, or changing neighborhood dynamics, B&H has miraculously found a way to persevere. The cramped diner-style counter-service establishment is in the heart of the East Village and once catered to working-class Jewish immigrants who lived in the neighborhood. With the Jewish community of yesteryear gone, B&H now serves a highly diverse crowd. The eclectic duo that has owned the landmark since 2004 underscores this diversity: Polish Christian Ola Smigielska and her Egyptian Muslim husband, Fawzy Abdelwahed. Customers are treated like family at B&H, and the love is returned: through trials and tribulations, such as the challenging COVID-19 period, loyal patrons started a fundraiser that raised over $50,000.
Favorites on B&H’s menu include:
- cheese blintzes
- latkes
- tuna melts
- borscht
- matzo ball soup
- Pierogis with sour cream
- applesauce grilled cheese on challah
Noi Due Cafe
Upscale Cafe (Dairy)
Upper West Side
Offering brunch, lunch, and dinner in the heart of the Upper West Side, Noi Due Cafe serves rustic Italian classics like pizza, pasta, and fish dishes. Unusually for a kosher dairy restaurant, Noi Due also offers a full lineup of alcoholic beverages, including craft cocktails, ciders, beers, and wine. On top of a solid menu and comforting ambiance, the service at Noi Due Cafe often gets high marks. Note that Noi Due Carne is a sister restaurant focused on meat dishes.
Bonus Additions
With so many excellent kosher restaurants in, dare we say, the most fantastic city on earth, it is inevitable that there are other must-visit places, but alas, the top 10 has limited us.
With that in mind, here are a few more great options.
Bonus Steakhouses & Fine Dining
In our view, Wall Street Grill, Noi Due Carne, and Mike’s Bistro (Dan of Dan’s Deals, a kosher restaurant aficionado of sorts, calls their Duck Gnocchi “out of this world”) are three impressive kosher fine-dining restaurants in Manhattan.
Hip & Fun Options From Michelin-Starred Israeli Chef
Recently, Israeli Michelin-starred chef Eyal Shani has taken Manhattan’s kosher food scene by storm, opening Malka, a sit-down, waiter-served restaurant, and Miznon, a more fast-casual spot with seating but no waiters. Malka is fun and offers great dishes on its ever-changing seasonal menu, and Miznon serves high-quality, fresh pitas with a variety of options, from meat and chicken to vegetarian. Note, though, that Shani operates various brands and locations in Manhattan and worldwide, most of which are not kosher-certified. Even in Manhattan, only some of the numerous Miznon locations are kosher-certified.
Exciting New Entrants
- For vegan aficionados, try Chef Guy Vaknin’s expanding Kosher restaurant empire, which includes: Anixi, Beyond Sushi, Le Basque, Coletta, and more.
- LIBBI, a dairy restaurant and cafe from those behind Abaita.
- Pita Bar NYC, near the Lower East Side, offers quick falafels, shawarma, and other Israeli-style sandwicherie.
Whether you call it Manhattan, New York City, or “The Big Apple,” enjoy some of the best kosher restaurants in the best city in the world!
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