Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

A Very Traif Passover

It seems only fitting that a restaurant so dedicated to treyf that it named itself after the term for unkosher food should open during Passover.

The brainchild of Jewish chef Jason Marcus and manager Heather Heuser, Traif — they spell it differently than we do — will have its soft opening this weekend in Williamsburg. It will be a restaurant of “shared plates, specializing in pork and shellfish and global soul food,” Marcus told the Forward.

“I am Jewish, although obviously not great at it. Traif…celebrates the foods that I love most, which just so happens to be the foods that I am not supposed to eat.” Marcus wrote on the restaurant’s blog.

The ironic restaurant concept will fit right in in Williamsburg, the hub of New York hipster culture and the home to an insular community of Orthodox Jews.

“I knew Traif had a ring to it and if anyone was gonna get it, it was New Yorkers,” Marcus said.

Marcus isn’t the only Jewish chef reveling in his love of treyf food recently. Former Top Chef-winner Ilan Hall opened his LA restaurant The Gorbals last November with bacon-wrapped matzo balls on the menu.

So here’s to a Jewish love of ironic bacon. As Marcus added on Traif’s blog: “We’re coming as soon as we can open, and we’ve got bacon, a lot of bacon!”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.