Restaurants serve up tacos, burgers, sushi and more that adhere to Jewish dietary laws
Chinese food such as steamed chicken dumplings, top, long noodle soup, middle, and sesame chicken, bottom, can keep their same flavors and still be prepared following kosher guidelines. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Related: News Briefs
By Jan Norris
Kosher pizza? Tacos? And barbecue?
This is not your bubbe’s deli food.
South Florida restaurants are updating menus to include kosher foods, both casual and fine dining.
Owners are finding they attract not only the Jewish and other diners who keep kosher, but many who have never eaten the restricted diet but find they like the fresh flavors and “clean” preparations.
Ai Lien Chung, co-owner of Bambu Pan Asian in Boca Raton, says that her customers often tell her they used to keep kosher diets, but quit.
“They say they will start again after tasting our food — it’s so good.”A kosher food supervisor whose name is Boruch watches as chef Lee Tran prepares chicken curry at Bambu Pan Asian in Boca Raton. The foods, modern and traditional Chinese, are “very popular,” she said. The mini chain she and her husband started in Miami opened in Boca Raton in 2023. It now has a third restaurant in Hollywood.
The restaurant is glatt kosher — certified to the highest standards, overseen by an Orthodox rabbi or representative before it’s opened. Ovens and stoves are torched to burn off all nonkosher foods in a procedure called kashering, and all meats are guaranteed to be from kosher butchers. Other strict rules from a long list are followed.
“The rabbi came in, fired the kitchen, and made sure all meats were cleaned correctly. All sauces prepared correctly,” she said.
Bambu is at 141 NW 20th St., just west of Dixie Highway. Though her target audience is farther west, non-Jewish residents of east Boca are coming for the food, Chung said.
“The Boca customers are really getting into it,” she said. “Many found us and they drive a long way to get here.”
Her foods stem from childhoods she and her husband spent in Israel in combination with traditional Chinese dishes she learned at the same time. After moving to the United States 27 years ago, and working in kosher restaurants in Miami, the couple decided to open their own kosher Chinese.
A bar and grill may not come to mind as kosher, but at Ditmas Wok and Grill, 21077 Powerline Road in Boca Raton, you can enjoy a cocktail with the Dirty Pico Taco at the bar. Burgers, steaks, chicken — all here, all kosher. Just don’t expect traditional mac ’n’ cheese as a side. Meat and dairy are never mixed at the same meal if kosher.
Several kosher restaurants are higher end, with main dishes costing more than $100 a plate, giving kosher diners an upscale experience.
At the W in Boynton Beach, 12250 Westchester Club Drive, a full line of sushi sits alongside glatt kosher wagyu steaks in a fine-dining steakhouse setting, a far cry from a deli with pastrami sandwiches.
Prime rib egg rolls and tempura cauliflower with dipping sauces are starters here, along with arancini — trendy fried truffle risotto balls.
Rainbow rolls, crunchy salmon tartar rolls, and spicy tuna rolls are kosher versions of mainstream sushi.
Wagyu beef or lamb burgers are choices, along with a chuck beef rack of barbecued ribs — yes, kosher.
A wine list features a cellar of Herzog wines, kosher certified.
Meals such as this tomahawk steak and roasted vegetables, once off limits to kosher diners, are now fine to eat at a host of local restaurants for those whose meals must be prepared according to the strict diet. Photo provided
At Oak and Ember, a fine-dining steakhouse at 7600 W. Camino Real, Boca Raton, diners can choose from a glatt kosher menu that includes a pastrami flaked schnitzel, tacos as a summer special, or to go big, a traditional tomahawk.
A number of pizza spots feature kosher pies.
Jon’s Place in Boca Raton, 22191 Powerline Road, has a number of pizzas, all cheese based, with no meats (but anchovies). That avoids the problem of mixing meat and cheese — forbidden in kosher diets.
Lenny’s Pizza, 9070 Kimberly Blvd. in Boca Raton, claims to be the best kosher pizza around. All pies, burgers and salads are vegan or vegetarian.
The ever trendy smashburger is kosher on the menu at Smash House in Boca Raton, 21065 Powerline Road. Listed as the OG smashburger, it features the crispy, juicy, thin patty that’s all the rage. The kosher work-around twist is vegan cheese and beef bacon. Caramelized onions complete it.
Italians aren’t forgotten: Carmela’s, 7300 W. Camino Real in Boca Raton, reimagines American Italian dairy food on its kosher-certified menu.
Although Carmela’schanges dishes seasonally, diners might find Buffalo mozzarella sticks, butter-poached vegetarian “scallops,” a truffle mac ’n’ cheese, or a spinach ravioli with rose sauce.
Vegan dishes are a bonus at many of the kosher places, with nondairy cheese and plant-based proteins sitting in for meats on pizzas or in street foods such as tacos or hot dogs.
Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes that have a wider attraction are common in the area, and often are kosher by definition, such as baba ghanoush. But foods such as shawarma and kibbeh can be adapted to the kosher preparations.
Deli fans need not despair — delis still outnumber other kosher restaurants in the area. But pizza and sushi are gaining.
It’s a good time to pursue restaurants that cater to Jewish diners, Chung said, since many new residents have come from New York and New Jersey, where ethnic kosher restaurants are more prevalent.
“We are opening a kosher sushi and Vietnamese restaurant very soon out west,” Chung said. “We expect it will be welcomed.”
Jan Norris is a food writer who can be reached at nativefla@gmail.com.
Comments