The Hollywood Reporter has been ranking the 20 hottest Los Angeles spots each month, considering not only “traditional core dining metrics” like food, service, value and atmosphere, but also “the buzz factor.” And at number 20 this month is a kosher Zionist restaurant!
Fleishik’s
QUICK PITCH Hollywood Jews break challah alongside Hasids at this casual, order-at-the-counter kosher spot a few blocks east of CBS Television City. (Fleishik is Yiddish for meat.) Chef-owner Eric Greenspan – a veteran L.A. restaurateur who also runs chic vegan concept Erven in Santa Monica – is modernizing elements of the canon. Sandwiches with names like the Hillcrest Club and the Teddy Hertz (after Israel’s founding father) are loaded with crispy chicken skin gribenes and beet horseradish. Compliment them with sides of tzimmis slaw and pillowy kugel bites.
INSIDE DISH Customers may partake of “Netilat Yadayim” (ritual hand washing out of a special sink) when they order.
Besides the Teddy Hertz (chicken schnitzel with pickled red cabbage, red onion, green apple, sweet & hot mustard), the other Zionist dishes are the Jaffa (caraway falafel with roast peppers, orange, cucumber, harissa mayo, avocado hummus) and the Israeli salad.
Brisket sandwich AND whiskey? Sign me up!
