Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes Bakery - Houston St & Forsyth St

Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes Bakery
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212.477.2858
137 Houston St.
http://www.knishery.com/

No trip to Manhattan’s Lower East Side is complete without a visit to Yonah Schimmel’s, the birthplace of New York City’s original Jewish knish. Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes Bakery has been in the same location since 1910, and serves potato latkes and noodle kugel along with their collection of historic knishes. Yonah Schimmel’s knishery sells standard varieties of savory knishes (mushroom, spinach, sweet potato, red cabbage, etc.) and dessert knishes (filled with fruit and cheese), as well as “modernized” daily specials like garlic-onion and “pizza” knishes.

Most New Yorkers are familiar with street vendor knishes, but those sad, tired squares of over-worked dough and instant mashed potatoes give knishes everywhere a bad name. Yonah Schimmel’s serves up fluffy, handmade mashed potatoes baked inside of a flaky, piping hot crust. All those potatoes can sit heavy in your stomach, though, so one knish should be plenty for lunch or an on-the-go afternoon snack - a dab of spicy brown mustard livens things up if you’re looking for a little extra kick.

Spinach knish

Mushroom knish

These knishes are roughly the size of softballs and, at $3.50 each, are an outrageous steal. And if you want to truly indulge in the best Jewish food the Lower East Side has to offer, infamous Katz’s deli is just four blocks east along Houston St!