AJewish orKosher dairy restaurant,dairy lunchroom,dairy deli, or inYiddishmilchig restaurant,[a] is a type ofkosher restaurant that does not serve meat underJewish dietary laws, meaning eggs, dairy, and fish are permitted. Under this understanding of meat, the restaurants are thought of as and are nominallyvegetarian. These restaurants are typicallyluncheonettes ordiners that serveAshkenazi Jewish cuisine, particularlyAmerican Jewish cuisine and thecuisine of New York City.
Descending from European "milk pavilions" and "dairy cafes," dairy restaurants were widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States, patronized by health- and cost-conscious customers, particularly immigrant families. They were important to theJewish diaspora prior to their decline and modernization.
.jpg)
Due to the strict rules for separatingmilk and meat in Jewish law, dairy ormilchig (Yiddish:מילכיק) restaurants evolved as an alternative toJewish delicatessens that specialized in meat (fleischig orfleyshik).[3] They are generallyovo-lacto-pescatarian even though they may be referred to as "vegetarian" or "vegetarian and dairy restaurants"; some proprietors of kosher dairy restaurants added "vegetarian" to their name to attract additional clientele.[4]: 294 Descended from themilchhallen or "milk pavilions" andmleczarnia or "dairy cafes" of Europe, they began appearing in theJewish immigrant community of theLower East Side of Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where there were at one time hundreds of dairy restaurants.[5][6][7] Dairy kosher places were also found inChicago andToronto,[8][9] as well as in theEast End of London.[10][11] Dairy restaurant menus include items such as potatolatkes,gefilte fish,matzo brei, vegetarian (milkhiker)borscht,kugel,protose (a synthetic vegetable meat substitute),pierogies,milk toast,poppy seed cakes,buttermilk, cheeseblintzes, andkreplach, as well as American dishes such asscrambled eggs andtuna salad.[4][12][13]
Dairy restaurants were associated with the vegetarian movement and the healthy food trends of the day, with many advertising their health claims or including the word "health" in the name of their establishment and in their advertising.[4][b] Vegetarian eating was also touted as a way to save money.[14]
Similar to a coffee shop or a community center, dairy restaurants were inexpensive meeting places and athird place for the more cost-conscious in the worlds of art, politics, and culture, as well as a destination forcomfort food for first-generation immigrants. For second-generation and later generations of American Jewish restaurant-goers, the restaurants created a connection to their heritage andJewish identity. Their status as neighborhood institutions created a connection with the history of their neighborhoods which extended beyond Jewish communities.[14]
Perhaps due to its utilitarian style, the Jewish dairy restaurant has not been memorialized or preserved compared with the Jewish deli or other ethnic restaurant styles. They survive in advertising from newspapers of the time.[4]: 233
Precursors to themilchig restaurant include themilchhallen or "milk pavilions" of Germany and Austria, also calledmeierei (dairy farms). These were urban businesses that ranged from a kiosk to a large building which served milk,custard, cheese dishes, beer,cold cuts, and smallsandwiches. Some of these dairy stands or milk shops had Jewish proprietors.[4]: 160–164, 185
Themleczarnia were dairy cafes in Poland in the 19th century, perhaps based on the Parisiancrémerie or themichhallen. Some sold kosher dairy dishes in Jewish neighborhoods and offered "consumption on the spot" for cakes and breads. The word also refers to adairy, i.e. a place where milk was produced or sold, but came to encompass a type of eating house. The Polishmleczarnia became linked to nationalism and culture. AuthorYechezkel Kotik ran a literary dairy cafe inWarsaw which inspiredSholem Aleichem'sMenahem-Mendl stories. These establishments might have identified as dairies to avoid licensing requirements or surveillance that cafes were subject to.Antoni Lange andBolesław Leśmian were among writers who participated in the Polish dairy cafe scene.[4]: 178–186 However, in Poland, these were not considered restaurants.[4]: 263 The Polishmleczny or milk bars are another format descended from themleczarnia.[4]: 193
Non-Jewish dairy restaurants in the United States existed, at least in name, in the 1870s, and became a widespread restaurant format. Notable early dairy restaurant businesses were opened by Frank Ward in 1887 in Washington D.C., J.A. Whitcomb in Baltimore in 1916 whose restaurant chain grew to 140 branches, a chain of 14 restaurants owned by Alfred W. Dennett in Boston in 1883, and Samuel Childs who operated 81 branches of his dairy lunchroom in 1916. These restaurants experimented with vegetarianism but also served meat. They were inspired by thetemperance movement and thepure foods movement. Early dairy restaurants were similar to later Jewish kosher ones in their decor and spirit, but did not strictly serve a dairy menu.[4]: 236–242
Jewish restaurant culture in lower Manhattan was well-established in the 19th century. By 1905 there were hundreds of cafes and coffee shops.[4]: 268 Immigrants from Romania in particular supported the culture of the Yiddish press, theater, and literature, and alongside immigrants from Poland and Russia, opened a variety of restaurants which became political and cultural gathering places.[4]: 269–280 The earliest Jewish dairy restaurants appeared in the Jewish Lower East Side of New York[3] and were noted by newspapers by 1919. The first popular Jewish dairy restaurant was owned by Jacob J. Kampus (Campus), who immigrated from Romania, and appears in an 1889 directory. An ad from 1900 advertises blintzes, kreplakh andmamaliga.[4]: 320–321
According toMarcus Eli Ravage, Romanian immigrants originated the institution of the dairy restaurant.[15] However, some restaurants were not Romanian-style and may have predated them. Jewish dairy restaurants proliferated due to the low barriers to entry for immigrant entrepreneurs, and a ready base of customers with experience with a taste for Eastern European Ashkenazic-style dairy cuisine. The restaurant business was experiencing an upswing in early 20th century New York.Upton Sinclair'sThe Jungle, which exposed issues in the meat industry, was translated byAbraham Cahan and published inForverts in 1906, which popularized the benefits of a dairy and vegetarian diet and the unsanitary conditions of slaughterhouses.[4]: 312–313 These restaurants catered to the desire to assimilate into American society.[4]: 319
The rise of New York's dairy restaurants was aided significantly by the emergence of commercialrefrigeration and community complaints about expensive retailkosher butchers, which culminated in "meat strikes", such as the1902 kosher meat boycott. The butchers blamed theBeef Trust, shippers, inspectors, and the kosher slaughter industry for raising prices. The rising prices caused New York housewives to riot on the Lower East Side and inWilliamsburg, proclaiming that they would live on fish. This also resulted in citywide kosher meat shortages. By this time refrigeration had made fresh milk and cream affordable and safe, and alongside the shortage, made dairy an attractive alternative to meat. The growth invegetarian diets, as promoted byprogressive Jewish thinkers, also inspired a turn to dairy meals.[13][16][17][4]: 306–309, 313
Some restaurants like Garden Cafeteria became meeting places for the Yiddish cultural intelligentsia.[18] TheYiddish theater district around 2nd Avenue played host to many restaurants that opened up to serve the theater-goers and the performers during its heyday.[13][19] Restaurants like Ratner's were frequented by Yiddish theater actors, were meeting places for political writers such as thePartisan Review writers, and later on became relevant to the 1960s youth culture.[4]: 349 By the time Ratner's closed in 2002 it was barely operating at a break-even rate, due to rising costs.[4]: 449–450 Many old-style dairy restaurants closed by the 1970s, in some places supplanted by a newer generation of kosher dairy pizzerias and falafel shops.[20][4]
Notable examples frequented by Jewish immigrants andAmerican Jews, among others, includeB&H Dairy andRatner's.[21] As of 2024, B&H is operating as one of the few remaining Jewish dairy restaurants in New York's former Yiddish theater district, and is run by an Egyptian Muslim and Polish Catholic couple.[1] B&H counted Yiddish theater actorsMolly Picon andMaurice Schwartz among its patrons.[4]: 480
Steinberg's on theUpper West Side was beloved by writers and as well as those associated with the Yiddish theater, andblacklisted film industry workers such asZero Mostel, as well as well-known actorWalter Matthau and singerHarry Belafonte.[4]: 388, 474–475 [22] Another famous intellectual patron was author and Nobel LaureateIsaac Bashevis Singer, a notedJewish vegetarian, was said to favor the Famous Dairy Restaurant on West 72nd Street.[23][24]
The infamous gangsterMeyer Lansky frequented Ratner's, where he met withLucky Luciano. Ratner's later named a bar after him.[25][26][27] The Lansky Lounge, a makeshiftspeakeasy with dancing, was located in the rear party room of the establishment, with a secret entrance in the alleyway and decor depicting East Side mobsters. According to Abraham Reinstein, the manager of Ratner's for nearly 40 years, Lansky would sit at a table in that room surrounded by bodyguards.[4]: 449
According to one story,Leon Trotsky was particularly fond of Triangle Dairy in the Bronx, whose waiters were Russian émigrés. There, he refused to tip as a matter of principle, insisting that a reliance on tips rather than a salary was "demeaning to the dignity of a workingman", and tried to persuade other customers to join him. In response, Trotsky received verbal abuse, poor service, and on one occasion had hot soup intentionally spilled on him by the waiters.[28]
More recently, in Los Angeles,Steven Spielberg's mother opened The Milky Way restaurant.[29] In Boro Park, New York City, a Hasidic neighborhood, modern dairy restaurants serve pizza and falafel alongside traditional dairy restaurant fare like donuts, omelets, pancakes, and pirogies. Many of the classic-style dairy restaurants in New York have closed.[30]
In the modern day, particularly in more observantdenominations of Judaism, dairy restaurants are usually certified by akosher certification agency. Dairy restaurants in the early 20th century generally were not certified kosher, and most Jewish consumers of the time were satisfied with U.S. government approval.[4]: 310–311
In 2023, all vegetarian and vegan restaurants were deemed kosher regardless of certification inConservative Judaism, codifying what was already a commonly observed practice by those who observe Jewish dietary laws in that denomination.[31]
The advent of commercial refrigeration meant that fresh milk and cream were affordable and safe..The result was a series of meat strikes, breathlessly covered in The New York Times and elsewhere, that included riots by women on the Lower East Side and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (One headline: "Housewives Go On Strike, March from Store to Store Proclaiming That They'll Live on Fish.")
kosher food shops like Mendel's 18th Avenue Pizza near 50th Street, where falafel, pirogies, or blintzes could be munched, Amnon's Kosher Pizza on 13th Avenue, the Donut Shop on 13th Avenue and 47th Street, where omelets and pancakes were also on the menu, and China Glatt, on 13th Avenue at 45th Street, one of the few nondairy restaurants... The dairy restaurants of decades ago, where neighborhood habitués like Isaac Bashevis Singer – the Nobel laureate who had a section of West 86th Street named in his honor – are no more.
| History | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Types | |||||||||
| Religious dietary laws | |||||||||
| Chefs | |||||||||
| Religious foods | |||||||||
| Breads |
| ||||||||
| Sweets |
| ||||||||
| Pastries | |||||||||
| Fried foods | |||||||||
| Dumplings, pastas and grain dishes | |||||||||
| Casseroles and savory baked dishes | |||||||||
| Snacks and other baked goods | |||||||||
| Sandwiches | |||||||||
| Egg dishes | |||||||||
| Meat dishes | |||||||||
| Fish dishes | |||||||||
| Salads and pickles | |||||||||
| Vegetable dishes | |||||||||
| Soups and stews | |||||||||
| Cheeses and other dairy products | |||||||||
| Condiments, dips and sauces | |||||||||
| Beverages | |||||||||
| Herbs, spices and seasonings | |||||||||
| Eateries | |||||||||
| Related lists | |||||||||
