Russ & Daughters anchoring Navy Yard food hall – it’s about time they expanded from their cramped digs.
The pickled herring scene in Brooklyn just got a whole lot more interesting.
Russ & Daughters, the legendary family-run Lower East Side store with fans such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will anchor a new food hall and manufacturing space at the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Building 77.
Russ & Daughters is taking 14,000 square feet on the ground floor of the 1 million-square-foot former warehouse, which is undergoing a $185 million renovation.
In addition to anchoring the building’s 60,000-square-foot food hall, the store will move its bakery and food production operations from Bushwick to the Navy Yard, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A memoir from the grandson who turned it into an institution. His daughter and nephew started the restaurant and are expanding it for the 21st Century smoked salmon wars.
Jewish deli and “appetizing” stores (that don’t sell meat, just fish, etc), which died out as immigrant Jews assimilated more and more after WW II, are now a culinary vogue gaining widespread interest and being reinvented all over the US, if not recreated.
The family at Russ are riding this wave artfully…including writing the book linked above. (That their food is great is, of course, very helpful.)
Correction; New Yorkers with tons of money are so lucky.
Not complaining mind you, but let’s face reality, only tourists and the well-heeled are going to spend fifty bucks a head or more in a cafeteria type environment (take a look at the photos of the interior of The Cafe) for even damned good bagels, cream cheese, and fish.
I was walking around a few weekends ago and happened upon 2nd Street Deli. It’s not cheap either, but I think it offers a better value proposition. Platter including pickles, bagel, and all the goodies sets you back $18 and the atmosphere and service is better. Besides, I happened to have George Takei and some other guy involved in “Allegiance” bellyaching about how their show failed sitting right next to me.
As the above evidences, I don’t particularly like Russ & Daughters or its food, but that’s not fair to them. Smoked fish is an extremely expensive raw ingredient - good fish retails from $30-50/lb (depending on type and quality) at many places these days. If you assume they are putting about 3-4oz on every bagel, the raw-ingredient cost of the bagel & lox (assuming wholesale fish price) is probably ~$5, which means they can fairly charge around $20 for it . . . and they do.
That’s why I smoke my own salmon. The salmon starts at a minimum of $15/lb itself (I prefer to use Norwegian farmed after several tatste tests). Then you cure it for a couple of days and the moisture sweats out leaving an even lighter piece of salmon.
I do really like their food, especially their [salty] lox, and their “whitefish” (it includes a heavy dose of kippered salmon) salad. I also enjoy going their, which I do very infrequently, as I live 100 miles away. Being in the store is as good of a sensory experience as being in Armand Rousseau’s moldy cellar.
How do you like BGs sturgeon? Supposed to be their specialty, no? Only been there twice, first time had lox (really good), second time was Saturday, so they were closed (Oy! what was I thinking?). The ambiance is really like a 60s time warp, with slightly faded period wallpaper and customers.
Thanks David, I’ve come across it before and never tried it. In the past I’ve liked recipes with lots of dill, but not any cheaper than the Costco version of gravlax, which is quite tasty.
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