Kosher Restaurants in the Financial District: Where to Eat Downtown
By 17John Hotel ·
Quick answer
The Financial District has a small but real kosher scene, and almost all of it sits within a 15-minute walk of John Street. Reserve Cut at 40 Broad Street is the big-occasion steakhouse, Wall Street Grill at 128 Pearl Street does kosher fine dining with rooftop seating, Bravo Kosher at 17 Trinity Place handles pizza and deli on a weekday budget, and Cafe 11 at 11 Broadway near Bowling Green is the quick lunch stop. Nearly all of them close Friday afternoon for Shabbat and reopen Saturday night, so call ahead if you're planning a weekend meal, and keep in mind our suites have full kitchens if you'd rather cook.
Dinner downtown. Most kosher spots in FiDi reopen Saturday night, and that's the busiest table of the week. · Photo by Romain Gal on Unsplash
People assume you have to go uptown or to Brooklyn for kosher food in New York. Down here you don't. The Financial District has four or five reliable kosher places, and because the neighborhood is compact, all of them are a short walk from John Street rather than a subway ride.
A guest asked us about kosher options this week, which is what prompted us to write this down properly. Here's what's actually near us, what each place is good for, and the scheduling detail that trips people up more than anything else.
One thing to plan around: most kosher restaurants here close Friday afternoon before sundown and don't reopen until Saturday night, and some skip Saturday entirely. In fall and winter that Friday closing time creeps earlier and earlier. If your trip includes a Friday night or a Saturday lunch, call the restaurant directly before you count on it. That's also when having a kitchen in your suite earns its keep, because you can shop Thursday and cook.
Walk times below are from 17 John Street, at a normal pace, and the Financial District is pretty quiet on weekends so you won't be fighting crowds on the way.
Reserve Cut
· About a 10-minute walk south from John Street · $$$$
This is the one people book for a birthday, a closing dinner or a Saturday night out. It's a kosher steakhouse on the second floor at 40 Broad Street, a couple of blocks off the New York Stock Exchange, and it's run as a proper white-tablecloth restaurant rather than a kosher place that happens to serve steak. Expect steakhouse pricing to match. Reserve well ahead for Saturday nights after Shabbat ends, because that's the busiest slot of the week and the dining room fills with the same crowd every time. If you're coming from John Street, walk down Broad and you'll pass most of the Wall Street sights on the way, which makes it an easy dinner to build a walk around.
Wall Street Grill
· About a 10-minute walk · $$$
The other serious kosher dinner option down here, and the one we'd pick in warm weather because it has rooftop seating. It sits on Pearl Street between Wall Street and Hanover Square, which puts it a block from Stone Street, so you can eat here and then walk the cobblestones afterward. It's grill-forward kosher cooking with a full menu, less formal than Reserve Cut and easier to get into on short notice, though the roof is the part worth asking for when you book. Weekday lunches draw the finance crowd, so it's calmer at dinner.
Bravo Kosher
· About a 12-minute walk · $
Pizza, burgers and deli, which is what you actually want at 1pm on a Tuesday or when you've got kids who are done with sightseeing. It's on Trinity Place near Morris Street, just south of Trinity Church, so it lines up well with a Battery Park or Charging Bull morning. Counter service, quick turnaround, no ceremony. This is the place we'd point a family to rather than either steakhouse.
Cafe 11
· About a 14-minute walk · $
A kosher cafe at the bottom of Broadway near Bowling Green, which is useful territory because it's right where you end up before or after the Statue of Liberty ferry at Battery Park. Good for a light lunch or a coffee and something to eat when you don't want a sit-down meal. Hours here run on the shorter side and change seasonally, so this is the one most worth a phone call before you walk down.
Cooking in your suite
· 5 to 15 minutes on foot depending which you pick · $
Honestly, for a longer stay this is what most of our kosher-keeping guests end up doing at least half the time. The suites have full kitchens, so you can shop for hechshered packaged goods and produce nearby and handle breakfasts and Shabbat meals yourself instead of building every day around restaurant hours. We've written up where to buy groceries around John Street separately. Shop Thursday if Friday is going to be tight.
