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This Manhattan restaurant is serving a $95 latke for Hanukkah
(New York Jewish Week) — With movie tickets that cost $30 and apartments that can reach staggering, nine-digit figures, New York City is notoriously expensive. And yet, one restaurant’s new luxury latke is still pricey enough to make jaws drop.
For Hanukkah this year, Caviar Russe, an upscale seafood restaurant in Midtown, is serving an oversized latke topped with caviar, priced at a cool $95.
The restaurant’s executive chef Edgar “Teddy” Panchernikov told the New York Jewish Week that this is the first time he has created a holiday-specific menu item, Hanukkah or otherwise, calling the pricey potato pancake a “one-off.”
The latke is an amped-up version of the mini potato pancakes the Madison Avenue restaurant serves year-round as one of the accoutrements to their caviar service, with prices that range from $65 for 25 grams of Pacific sturgeon caviar up to $10,445 for 500 grams of Almas osetra, an “exceptionally rare” caviar.
The restaurant, which opened in 1997, is just one element of Caviar Russe, a caviar business owned by Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union that regularly appears on lists of the best places to buy the fish roe. The company consists of a wholesale and online business, a caviar boutique and two restaurants, one in New York City and the other in Miami. The New York eatery has been awarded a Michelin star every year since 2014.
The limited-time latke consists of Yukon gold potatoes mixed with salt, pepper and chives — no egg, flour or any kind of filler is used. Chef Panchernikov, the 32-year-old son of Caviar Russe’s founders, then fries it all in clarified butter (no olive oil for these babies!). The crispy plate-sized potato pancake is then topped with creme fraiche, a creamy “egg jam” made by cooking the yolks in a sous vide bath, and one ounce of osetra caviar — which typically retails for about $100 an ounce at Caviar Russe and is one of their most popular varieties, according to a publicist for the restaurant.
In a video shared with the New York Jewish Week of Panchernikov making the latke, he slices it into quarters — so, rest assured, the treat is designed to be shared. However, the latke needs to be ordered 24 hours in advance; interested customers should email jgergeos@caviarrusse.com.
The idea for the luxury latke came from marketing consultant Elana Levin, who was hired by the Caviar Russe team three months ago. “I thought it would be a nice way to tap into his heritage with a potato latke to celebrate Hanukkah at the restaurant,” Levin said of Panchernikov. “He was immediately open to it — he was excited to get creative in the kitchen and to do something that represents their culture and heritage and have a way to celebrate with his guests.”
“The presentation and how he built the latke was the chef’s idea,” she added.
As it happens, the luxury latke isn’t the only Jewish happening at Caviar Russe: “My Unorthodox Life” stars and internet influencers Julia Haart and her daughter, Batsheva, are holding a fundraiser, “Caviar for a Cause,” at the Manhattan restaurant’s bar and lounge. Tickets to the afternoon event on Sunday — which are nearly sold out — are $300, with all proceeds going to Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross.
The owners of the restaurant are donating the food – passed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres – and the space. And although Panchernikov describes his family as “not very religious,” he told the New York Jewish Week that he felt compelled to show his support. “Given the recent events, we want to support other Jews and Israel,” he said.
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The post This Manhattan restaurant is serving a $95 latke for Hanukkah appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Fake Plan to Attack Australia Synagogue Fabricated by Organized Crime, Police Say
Car in New South Wales, Australia graffitied with antisemitic message. Photo: Screenshot
A fake plan to attack on a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives was fabricated by an organized crime network in order to divert police resources, Australian police said on Monday.
Authorities in January found explosives in a caravan, or trailer, that could have created a blast wave of 40 meters (130 feet), along with the address of a Sydney synagogue.
But police on Monday said the discovery was part of a “criminal con job,” with the ease with which the caravan was found along with the lack of a detonator suggesting there was never any intent to attack Jewish targets.
“The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” Krissy Barrett, the Australian Federal Police‘s Deputy Commissioner for National Security, told a news conference.
“Almost immediately, experienced investigators … believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorism plot – essentially a criminal con job.”
Police are yet to make any arrests in relation to the planning of the fabricated plot but have gone public with the information in order to provide comfort to the Jewish community in Sydney, Dave Hudson, New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner, told the news conference.
“It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs, to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to or engage in other criminal activity,” Hudson said.
Police are investigating a suspect involved in an organized crime network, he added.
Australia has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent months, with homes, schools, synagogues, and vehicles targeted by vandalism and arson, drawing the ire of the country’s traditional ally Israel.
The post Fake Plan to Attack Australia Synagogue Fabricated by Organized Crime, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Urging UN Agencies, Aid Groups to Replace UNRWA in Gaza, Envoy Says
A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Israel is actively encouraging UN agencies and other aid groups to take over the work of the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Israel‘s ambassador said on Monday, after banning the agency on Israeli territory in January.
“We, the State of Israel, are working to find substitute to the act, to the work of UNRWA inside Gaza,” Daniel Meron, Israel‘s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.
He declined to give specifics but said Israel was “encouraging the UN agencies and NGOs to take over each one in its own field that they specialize in.”
The Israeli government and research organizations have publicized findings showing numerous UNRWA-employed staff, including teachers and school principals, are active Hamas members, some of whom were directly involved in the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, while many others openly celebrated it.
The post Israel Urging UN Agencies, Aid Groups to Replace UNRWA in Gaza, Envoy Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Man Who Scaled London’s ‘Big Ben’ Clock Tower With Palestinian Flag Appears in Court
A man with a Palestinian flag sits on the Elizabeth Tower, commonly known as Big Ben, next to Houses of Parliament, in London, Britain, March 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
A man who climbed part way up the “Big Ben” clock tower at London’s Palace of Westminster early on Saturday and stayed there all day as part of a pro-Palestinian protest appeared in court on Monday.
Clutching a Palestinian flag, Daniel Day, 29, scaled 25 meters (82 feet) up the building, officially known as the Elizabeth Tower, at about 7:20 am on Saturday, remaining there for 16 hours until agreeing to come down, his lawyer and prosecutors told London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
He was subsequently charged by police with climbing and remaining on the tower which created “a risk or caused serious harm to the public,” and also trespassing on a protected site.
Prosecutors said Day’s actions had led to serious disruption in that area of central London with roads closed and buses diverted, and the cancellation of parliamentary tours had cost 25,000 pounds ($32,300).
Day’s lawyer said he would plead not guilty to the first charge, saying his action was designed to spread awareness regarding the situation in Gaza and Britain’s response to it.
The second charge of trespass requires the authorization of the attorney general, and so the case was adjourned until March 17 for a decision to be made.
Day, from a seaside town in eastern England, was remanded in custody, with his supporters clapping and shouting “Hero” and “Free Palestine” as he was led away.
Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of parliament’s House of Commons, which is also located in the Palace of Westminster, said he had asked for a review of the incident.
($1 = 0.7745 pounds)
The post Man Who Scaled London’s ‘Big Ben’ Clock Tower With Palestinian Flag Appears in Court first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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