If youre visiting Manhattan, dont bother walking up and down Delancey Street searching for Delancey Dessert Co. Its not there. The 16-year-old bakery is located around the corner on Grand Street. Same Lower East Side neighborhood, but definitely a different street. Who knows Grand Street, reasons Zvi Lavi, who started the bakery. Amy Irving wasnt crossing Grand, was she? Delancey is indeed the name with the cache, the street synonymous with Yiddish theater and immigrants from the shtetls of Eastern Europe. And kosher delis and bakeries. Lavis specialty is rugelach, the pastry traditionally made with cream-cheese dough spread with filling, such as chocolate, jam or nuts, and then rolled. His four primary versions are chocolate, cinnamon, apricot and raspberry. We use a special recipe, which goes down in generations, over 100 years, says Lavi, who immigrated to the U.S. from Israel in 1978. We use only the flaky dough. Its the original. Its more difficult to produce and keep it fresh, but we always do the original only. Delancey Dessert Co. has expanded its repertoire and now makes a variety of kosher pastries, including babka, cookies, mandelbrot, cakes and swirls. But the modestly packaged bags of rugelach are the bakerys calling card. They can be found at most of the upscale food stores in the city, from Dean & Deluca to Gourmet Garage. Lavi says he is hopeful his pastries soon will be in Price Chopper stores. I am carrying on a tradition, keeping a culture alive through food, Lavi adds. Babka and rugelach and the different cakes we make, they have an amazing history. They go back many, many generations. Lavi went to work in real estate when he first arrived in New York. He decided to start the bakery in 1990, he says, because I was looking for a little more excitement, something that would keep me a bit busier. He has no regrets. Every morning when he enters his bakery to the intoxicating aromas of baking rugelach, he knows he made the right decision.It brings me memories of my childhood. My mother used to bake rugelach for our house, he says. Nobody takes the trouble anymore, they just buy it ready-made.

Telephone: 212-254-0977
Fax: 212-253-8902
Website: http://www.babka.com/