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Unfortunately, the current local kosher restaurant landscape is a dim one: most guests evaluate how good an eatery is by considering basic needs that should be given while dining out, including whether cups of water are regularly refilled, the meat is properly cooked, sharing spoons are readily available and waiters actually stop by to make sure everything is okay.
In fact, the highest honor that could be bestowed upon a kosher restaurant is that it’s good despite being kosher and not when solely measured against other eateries in the category.
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BIS, a Middle Eastern restaurant at 1207 Lexington Avenue near 82nd Street on the Upper East Side that opened a little over a year ago, is one of the few destinations in NYC that falls squarely in the former grouping—a must-visit regardless of its connection to Jewish dietary norms.
From the outside, BIS, which has recently revamped its menu and the physical space it occupies, is pretty nondescript but, upon entry, high-end fixtures, finishes and a beautiful bar render one thing clear: the silent investor behind the project has paid attention to all details.
That regard is most clearly apparent in the list of main dishes available to all. Although the appetizers—from the creative sabich salad to the traditional plate of hummus, a lovely baba ghanoush dip and the seemingly ever-present-on-kosher-menus beef arayes—are worth trying, it's the entrees that truly pack a punch.
All visits demand an order of the mixed grill plate, which, at $96, offers most bang for your buck in terms of diversity of foods: the dish features steak kebab, kofta kebab (charbroiled minced beef) and shish tawook (a perfectly marinated piece of chicken that’s also charbroiled) with rice and roasted vegetables as sides.
Although the shish tawook certainly earns the best main course award, the rib eye and the branzino are also deserving of hall of fame status. The latter in particular is cooked in a spicy citrus-tahini sauce that adds a touch of novelty to what is usually a plain fish but still allows classic flavors to shine through, ideal for diners looking to stay away from meat.
The cocktail list is, perhaps, the most surprising portion of the menu when compared to those offered at fellow kosher eateries around town.
It's not often, in fact, that Jewish food purveyors focus this much on the drinks they serve: the seldom seen Bee's Knees (gin, lemon juice, honey) appears under classic cocktails alongside the more well-known Dry Martini, Boulevardier, Manhattan and Negroni. All are concocted to perfection, perhaps even rivaling the bartending skills seen across the best bars in NYC.
Given the all-around excellent experience offered by BIS, one question comes to mind: why doesn't the restaurant appear on the majority of best kosher eateries in New York lists found on the Internet?
"That's a question we have been wondering ourselves," says an official spokesperson for BIS. "We are relatively new and many people that dine with us have a great experience and come back."
Perhaps, though, the exact things that make BIS very good are the reasons why it has yet to achieve massive popularity among New York's Jewish community: the eatery zooms in on specific trends and cuisines, avoiding fellow kosher restaurants' propensity to offer a vast variety of worldly cuisines on a single menu (let me toot my own horn: that's one of the problems that this humble kosher food eating writer has identified when discussing the industry as a whole in a previously published column).
For what it's worth: keep doing what you're doing BIS. Fame doesn't come easy, after all.