Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Matzo Meets Muffuletta in Bywater's Jewish Delis
New Orleans is a melting pot of cultures, so it's no surprise that Jewish cuisine has woven itself into the city's culinary tapestry. Nowhere is this fusion on finer display than in the historic Bywater neighborhood, where several Jewish delis are putting a distinctly Southern spin on traditional dishes from Eastern Europe.
At Stein's Deli, rabbi-turned-restaurateur Alon Shaya pays homage to his Ashkenazi roots with creations like the Rabbi Reuben sandwich. This genius mashup combines flavor elements of a Reuben and a muffuletta, slathering thick-cut corned beef and pastrami between slabs of rye bread that have been schmeared with olive salad. The salty, briny relish acts as a perfect foil to the smoky meats, lending acidity and textural contrast with chunks of green olive, pickled cauliflower and carrot. A smear of grainy mustard ties it all together.
Down the road at the unassuming Brown Butter Southern Kitchen, chef Brittanny Anderson has earned a cult following for her fried matzo creations. The Jewish flatbread achieves crispy exterior, fluffy interior perfection when dredged in cornmeal then deep fried. Served alongside Anderson's seasonal preserves for dipping, it's the South's answer to the Northeast's beloved matzo brei. For a heartier bite, try the fried catfish po' boy on matzo, which swaps traditional French bread for a sheet of crunchy matzo.
Even beloved po-boy shop Parkway Bakery & Tavern has gotten in on the Jewish fare with their occasional "latke specials." The joint effort involves a local rabbi blessing bags of latke mix before Parkway fries up the potato pancakes to order. Served on fluffy white bread and dressed with Parkway's signature olive salad, roast beef and swiss cheese, the hybrid sandwiches sell out almost instantly whenever they're offered.
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Knishes and Po' Boys - Fusing Old World and New Southern Favorites
The knish, a beloved Jewish snack stuffed with hearty potato, kasha, or cheese fillings, has found a new home in the American South fused with local po' boy sandwiches. This meeting of old world and new has created a whole new delicious hybrid that highlights the best of both culinary traditions.
At restaurants like Stein's Deli and Brown Butter Southern Kitchen, chefs are taking the classic knish form and stuffing it with iconic New Orleans po' boy fillings like fried catfish, roast beef, and debris gravy. Wrapped up in a soft potato dough shell, these po' boy knishes make for a perfect on-the-go meal with influences from Ashkenazi and Cajun cuisines. As food writer Julia Moskin noted after tasting one of Stein's creations, "The knish rises to the challenge. With a po’boy inside, it becomes a portable, downgrade and almost dainty version of New Orleans’s most rock-solid sandwich."
Beyond stuffed knishes, some restaurants are fusing knishes and po' boys in even more inventive ways. At vegan deli Seed, their "knish po' boy" ditches the bread entirely and uses a deep-fried knish as the sandwich holder itself. Slathered with vegan debris gravy, layered with seitan "brisket" and pickled carrots, it's a meat-free take that still captures the po' boy experience. As one happy customer raved, "The knish was perfectly fried with a crunchy exterior and fluffy interior. The seitan had the stringy, tender texture of brisket with a satisfying chew."
For tourists and locals alike, these knish-po' boy mashups offer the chance to enjoy two quintessential foods from different cultures in one convenient package. They represent the melting pot of cuisines that makes New Orleans dining so special. As Saveur Magazine noted, putting iconic Southern flavors inside an Eastern European knish "encapsulates not just two sandwich styles but two diasporas—Ashkenazi and Creole."
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Bubbe's Brisket Gets a Bayou Makeover
Brisket is practically a religion across the American South. Smoked low and slow, then slathered in a sweet and tangy barbecue sauce, Texas-style brisket represents the region's crowning culinary achievement. But brisket holds a sacred place in Jewish cuisine too, especially among Ashkenazi Jews, where braised brisket and onions is a staple at holiday tables and deli counters. So what happens when these two brisket traditions meet in the melting pot of New Orleans? You get some finger lickin’ good Jewish brisket with an irresistible Cajun kick.
At restaurants like Stein's Deli and Toups' Meatery, skilled chefs are taking tender cuts of brisket and giving them an amazing makeover with Louisiana flair. The brisket gets a good old fashioned kosher salt and pepper rub, then is smoked using local pecan, oak or hickory wood for that iconic Southern barbecue aroma. The more creative twists come into play with the sauce. Savory brisket jus is punched up with the brightness of citrus, warm spices like cayenne and paprika, and plenty of garlic. Sweet tones are added using Steen’s award winning sugarcane syrup instead of traditional honey or brown sugar. Some add extra depth with Worchester or even Louisiana hot sauce. The result is a brisket that beautifully balances the braised flavors Jewish delis are known for with the regional barbecue tastes of the Gulf Coast.
Beyond just brisket's central place in Jewish culture, this unique fusion represents how Jewish cuisine has constantly evolved based on geography. As Leah Koenig notes in her book The Jewish Cookbook, “Jews have lived all over the world...and absorbed flavors and ingredients from a myriad of cuisines and locales.” The fact that smoked pastrami can move from Romania to New Orleans, and absorb those Creole and Cajun tastes along the way, shows the adaptability of Jewish food traditions. Just as Jewish immigrants shaped American cuisine (think bagels, delis, and Manischewitz!), local American cuisine also shaped Jewish cuisine.
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Challah Goes Cajun with Cornbread Hushpuppies
The challah bread beloved at Shabbat dinners and Jewish holidays has found a delightful reinterpretation down South as cornbread hushpuppies. These fluffy fried cornmeal dumplings put a playful Cajun spin on the traditional braided egg bread while staying true to challah’s spirit as a comforting, celebratory carb.
New Orleans chef Alon Shaya first experimented with challah-inspired hushpuppies while developing menu items for his modern Israeli restaurant Saba. As he told Food & Wine magazine, “Hushpuppies felt reminiscent of many dumplings and fried doughs that we grew up with, like sgabei and loukoumades.” Frying up pâte à choux-based hushpuppy batter in the shape of mini challah rolls gave diners at Saba the best of both cuisines - the satisfying crunch of Southern comfort food and the rich, eggy interior of a fresh-baked challah.
Other NOLA restaurants have followed Shaya’s lead, developing their own riffs on challah hushpuppies. Stein’s Deli serves up hushpuppies modeled after challah rolls then injected with Creole shrimp or crawfish stuffing for an added bayou twist. Turkey and the Wolf’s hot honey and za’atar spiced puppies pay homage to Middle Eastern challah’s Jewish roots. For a vegan version, Seed makes challah puppies out of chickpea flour that deliver on the same pillowy texture and deliver a satisfying chew.
But it’s not just pro chefs reinventing challah down South. Home cooks and pop up Shabbat hosts have also embraced mini cornbread challah rolls as a more accessible stand-in for finicky yeasted doughs. Blogger Tori Avey’s simple challah hushpuppy recipe uses a 50/50 blend of cornmeal and all-purpose flour that requires no rising time - just mix, scoop and fry. Other home cooks punch up boxed Jiffy corn bread mix with eggs, oil and honey for DIY puppies with a sweetness evocative of honey challah.
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Gumbo Gefilte - Putting a Creole Spin on Classic Ashkenazi Cuisine
Gefilte fish, those poached patties of ground whitefish and matzo meal, are about as Ashkenazi as it gets - a staple at Passover Seders and Jewish delis across North America. But at restaurants like Coquette, Kin, and The Bower, chefs are taking this iconic dish and giving it an improbable Cajun reinvention as “gumbo gefilte.” By adding in Gulf flavors and ingredients, they’ve created a unique cultural fusion that offers the best of both culinary traditions.
The key to gumbo gefilte is taking the smooth, ginger-spiced fish forcemeat we know from jars and cans, and punching it up with an infusion of Creole soul. Onions, bell peppers and celery provide the classic Cajun holy trinity as a flavor base. Some chefs go further down the bayou route with additions like tasso ham, smoked sausage, shrimp or crawfish. The matzo meal binder gets swapped for a roux made from bacon or duck fat and flour - much closer to a gumbo’s origins. And of course, what’s gumbo without Filé powder and Louisiana hot sauce to provide that distinctive regional zing?
This novel interpretation matters because it shows the malleability and global reach of Jewish cuisine. AnUndeterred by tradition, Jewish cooks have often adapted local ingredients and techniques to make foreign cultures feel more like home. Gumbo gefilte is just one of the latest improvisations in that centuries-long process of Jewish cuisine evolving in diaspora. As cookbook author Leah Koenig writes: “The story of Jewish food is a story of migration, of diaspora. It is a story of recipes swapped and traditions borrowed.”
Gumbo gefilte also represents New Orleans’ status as a unique incubator of Jewish-Creole fusion food. The city’s vibrant Jewish community has been blending into the cultural stewpot for over a century. Chefs today honor that interconnected history by exploring playful hybrid dishes that bridge culinary gaps. As Chef Isaac Toups of Toups Meatery put it, he aims to “marry old-world Jewish dishes with New Orleansmainstream flavors."
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Fried Kreplach and Other "Treif" Delights
While traditional Jewish dietary laws (kashrut) forbid the mixing of meat and dairy, the melting pot of New Orleans is encouraging some playfully treif takes on old world favorites. At restaurants like Coquette, a wide array of fried Jewish dumplings can be found nestled right beside downright decadent po’ boys slathered in cheese and butter. Far from kosher, yet totally irresistible, these crispy stuffed pockets represent how the Crescent City encourages culinary rule breaking.
Fried kreplach have emerged as a standout stars on the treif scene. Chefs are taking the classic Jewish ravioli-like dumplings, usually boiled and served in soup, and giving them a decidedly more goyish fry job. Coquette offers both sweet and savory riffs, with Nutella-stuffed kreplach that ooze molten hazelnut chocolate, and crawfish kreplach that deliver a peppery snap. Even old school delis like Stein’s are getting in on the act, frying up kreplach filled with everything from pepper jack cheese to brisket debris. The indulgent flavors and crispy textures make you forget all about keeping kosher.
Burekas, another Ashkenazi Jewish stuffed dough, are also seeing new life around NOLA as handheld fried pies. At Saba, chef Alon Shaya fries his grandmother’s recipe burekas to a shatteringly flaky finish. Filled with spiced ground beef or feta and spinach, they evoke the nostalgia of after school snacks. Vegan bakery Bywater Boulangerie ups the treif ante by using real butter in their sweet burekas’ laminated dough. With fillings ranging from Nutella to strawberry and cream, they offer a thoroughly gentile indulgence.
Yet some feel there’s value in this kosher rebellion beyond just tantalizing taste buds. As journalist Gabriella Gershenson noted in Saveur, enjoying non-kosher Jewish food offered her a sense of freedom after an Orthodox upbringing: “In going treif, I’m not rejecting the cuisine itself, but my anxiety around it.” For chefs like Alabama native Joel Brown, fusing Jewish and Southern flavors also helps advance the cause of cultural understanding. As he told My New Orleans, “Food builds bridges.”
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Schmaltz Adds Flavor to Southern Classics Like Hoppin' John
Schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat, lies at the heart of many Ashkenazi Jewish recipes. Spread on bread, used to fry latkes, or added to matzo ball soup, the rich, golden fat provides a flavor base that screams of old world tradition. But in New Orleans, cooks are taking schmaltz beyond the deli case and using it to provide depth and savory oomph to Southern classics like hoppin’ john. The results are downright revelatory for fans of African American Gullah-Geechee cuisine.
Chef Isaac Toups of Toups Meatery first fell in love with schmaltz while working under a Louisiana legend, Leah Chase of Dooky Chase’s Restaurant. There he saw how Leah used rendered chicken fat in place of lard or bacon grease to provide rich undertones without overpowering the natural flavors of the other ingredients. Toups took that lesson to heart and started integrating schmaltz into his own spin on hoppin’ john.
Toups’ recipe relies on those bog standard hoppin’ john building blocks - rice, black-eyed peas, onions and pork. But he stirs his collard greens in a schmaltz-based pot likker rather than just salt pork broth. Once the greens have simmered, he deglazes the pan to make a smoky, fat-enriched stock that gets absorbed by the rice and peas. The result is hoppin’ john that’s comforting and craveable, with schmaltz providing a subtle bass note that accentuates the ingredients rather than changing their essential character.
Fellow NOLA chef Joel Brown takes a similar approach when making hoppin’ john for Sunday supper at his restaurant, Gris Gris. He too favors schmaltz over pork drippings to achieve the silky texture reminiscent of his grandmother’s versions. As Brown told My New Orleans, “Chicken fat coats the rice and gives it an extra savory richness.” For a bit of added luxury, he might garnish each bowl with a dollop of fresh schmaltz.
Home cooks around the Gulf have also found rendering their own schmaltz opens up new possibilities for infusing hoppin’ john with lip-smacking umami. Blogger Lindsay Harris reveals how after years of struggle, she finally achieved the “magical” texture she remembered from childhood hoppin’ johns by using homemade schmaltz instead of bacon grease. Other Southern cooks recommend using schmaltz for black-eyed peas in general, frying them up with onions for a flavor that’s subtly rounder and more complex than pork drippings.
Shalom Y'all! How Joel Brown's NOLA Jewish Cuisine Puts a Southern Spin on Traditional Dishes - Keeping Kosher in the Big Easy Ain't Easy for Observant Jews
While New Orleans delights in pushing the boundaries of Jewish cuisine, those who strictly keep kosher face real challenges in the Big Easy. From ingredient sourcing to prep methods, maintaining kashrut orthodoxy demands creativity and commitment from NOLA’s observant Jews.
Simply finding kosher certified ingredients poses the first obstacle. New Orleans lacks the large Jewish markets and specialty suppliers common in cities like New York and Miami. Local supermarkets may stock a few kosher staples like Manischewitz products and Streit’s matzos, but little beyond that. Fresh kosher meat and poultry must be ordered from out of state providers and closely monitored for shipping delays. Dairy options are even more limited - good luck finding a steady supply of kosher cheeses beyond mozzarella.
Kitchen facilities present another hurdle for kosher cooks, especially in restaurant settings. To avoid any mixing of meat and dairy (a fundamental kashrut law), an observant kitchen must maintain fully separate prep areas, cookware, utensils and dishwashing stations. While larger cities have centralized commercial kosher kitchens, New Orleans has no such facilities. That leaves observant caterers and pop-up chefs to impose an entire mobile kosher kitchen onsite - a massive undertaking.
Home cooks keeping kosher also face added work, like scrubbing their kitchens top to bottom and kashering ovens before Passover. And good luck finding a local restaurant that accommodates orthodox kosher diners. While a handful of spots like Kosher Cajun Deli purport to be kosher, none are certified by Orthodox authorities like the OU or CRC. This forces observant Jews to mostly cook at home.
The lack of kosher oversight in New Orleans stems partly from its unique Jewish history. The city’s Jewish population descends mainly from German Reform Jews who arrived in the 1800s. They assimilated readily into Creole culture while other groups like Eastern European Ashkenazim came later. So even as new waves of Orthodox Jews arrive, they find little communal groundwork for rigorous kosher observance.
Still, the challenges of keeping kosher in New Orleans have forged a resilient community. Rabbi Yochanan Rivkin moved from Brooklyn in 2007 to help provide kosher guidance and supplies for struggling locals. His popular Facebook group connects members to kosher products, restaurants and pop-ups. Home cooks share creative tips for keeping traditions alive using local ingredients, like making their own kosher Cajun seasoning. New services like kosher meal delivery help fill the communal gap.