From making kugel in her McNeill House kitchen to selling out of bagel sandwiches and creating a viral slushie in New York City, Elyssa Heller’s culinary exploits have jumped by several orders of magnitude since her time at Queen’s.
Since 2020, she has moved her bagel pop-up into a brick-and-mortar home, collaborated with Nordstrom, brought her sandwich counter offerings to the sky with Delta Air Lines, and even been the inspiration for a release of deli-themed nail polishes – all while feeding lineups of locals and tourists alike in Brooklyn.
Ms. Heller, Artsci’11, isn’t surprised to find herself running a busy Brooklyn deli.
“I always wanted to work in food; I love it so much,” she says. “I thought it was like a common language.”
An ACL injury in her last year of high school made Ms. Heller reconsider her plans to play volleyball at an Ivy League school. Instead of focusing solely on athletics, she wanted to seek out a university experience that would expand her world view. “What better way to do that than to ship myself off to another country,” she laughs.
Originally from Highland Park, just outside Chicago, Ms. Heller hadn’t been to Canada prior to visiting the Queen’s campus on a recruiting trip organized by the university athletics department. Before her visit was over, she had decided she was all in for Queen’s. In the end, she was so set on her university choice that it was the only school to which she applied.
Looking back, she realizes she arrived on campus without any preconceived notions about Canadian culture or history (“Do you guys celebrate Halloween up here?” she remembers asking early on). Her volleyball teammates – Ms. Heller was on the starting lineup from day one and captained the team in her senior year – helped her settle into her university home, introduced her to poutine, and assured her that Canadians do indeed celebrate Halloween.
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Elyssa Heller, Artsci’11
“Queen’s really was my first toe dip into the pond of broadening my horizons,” Ms. Heller recalls. It was the first time she encountered Jewish food traditions that differed from her own family’s (there’s “nothing better” than a Montreal bagel, she wisely says now). “It was the beginning of this journey of truly having an understanding of people and their cultures,” she explains. “You can learn so much about someone by sharing a meal with them – it’s the perfect foundation for understanding someone.”
Two weeks after graduating, Ms. Heller moved to New York City to work at Dylan’s Candy Bar, where she was first exposed to experiential retail: shopping experiences that are focused on creating a unique and engaging customer experience. That job kicked off a fascination with consumer behaviour and a decade of working in the food industry on manufacturing strategy, supply chains, research and development, and managing operations.
After a particularly busy year leading operations for a large dessert company, Ms. Heller was helping to launch a vegan snack brand at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then her divorce and another knee injury with subsequent surgery all piled on around the same time, prompting Ms. Heller to re-evaluate her next steps. She began to dream up her own venture focused on Jewish comfort food.
“It was kind of the same thing I did as when I was trying to figure out where to go to school,” she says, asking herself: “Where do I like spending my time? What makes me happy? What should I be doing?” The answer was going to the Jewish deli on Sundays with her family – it was her happy place growing up, a community gathering spot, and she wanted to create something like it in her Brooklyn neighbourhood.
She launched Edith’s as a pop-up, selling bagels out of a popular pizzeria in Greenpoint in August 2020, and opened to lineups around the block. “It was crazy,” Ms. Heller says with a chuckle. “We were cooking eggs in an 1,100-degree pizza oven – flames were crawling out the front.” The bagel sandwiches were immediately a hit, and the pop-up’s intended six-week run turned into eight months. In March 2021, Ms. Heller became a first-time restaurateur with the opening of Edith’s Sandwich Counter in Williamsburg – keeping the business as close as possible to the original pop-up location and in the community that had displayed such an outpouring of support for her “great-great-grandmother’s food with a twist.”
Edith’s is named for Ms. Heller’s great-aunt, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. Her family immigrated to the United States from Wallachia in eastern Europe through Ellis Island. “She opened a deli … hated it!” Ms. Heller laughs. Edith promptly sold the deli and moved to Miami. Still, Ms. Heller draws inspiration from her late great-aunt’s chutzpah. “There are not a lot of woman-owned sandwich shops,” she says, “and even fewer Jewish delis are owned by women.”
The sandwich counter’s namesake sandwich, the Edith, is Ms. Heller’s twist on the Reuben. It features house-smoked pastrami, kraut, Emmental cheese, and Edith’s special sauce on seeded rye. The rest of the menu pulls from both Jewish-American classics and the cuisine of the Jewish diaspora. It’s the kind of food that will appeal to diners who already know and love Jewish delis, and to those who have only ever seen one on TikTok.
Ms. Heller jokes that her personal repertoire of Jewish food is “brown and brown and white – it’s brisket, kugel, and potatoes.” But early in her time in New York City, she was introduced to the staple dishes of a Jewish Iranian friend. “It was totally different; bright, sour, colourful, and acidic.” Ms. Heller was blown away. “I thought that there could be a place where you could eat tahdig and matzo ball soup, and it’s all Jewish food,” she explains.
This mix of influences is seen through the menu. Breakfast wraps are served on malawach, a flaky and crispy Yemeni flatbread. Customers previously unfamiliar with the bread may find similarities with a scallion pancake or a roti. Through food, Ms. Heller says, diners can find their own connections and commonalities with cultures and each other.
She points to the Sephardi breakfast wrap as a crowd favourite and an example of how Edith’s is trying to weave Jewish stories into its offerings. The Alheira chicken sausage in the wrap has a storied history, as it is said to have been developed by Jews who fled to Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition. To evade persecution, they hid as Christian butchers, but since they did not butcher pork, they made a similar-looking sausage with kosher meat. “We just try to make really delicious food that happens to have a little historical fact about why it’s Jewish, or where it came from,” Ms. Heller explains.
There’s a distinctly Canadian influence to be found on Edith’s menu as well. The iced café slushie – made with oat milk, cold brew, and tahini – is the Edith’s version of a Tim Hortons iced capp. Ms. Heller delights in visiting Canadians recognizing the slushie as an iced capp dupe. “Highest compliment ever!” she gushes. “My flagship product is my love letter to Canada.”
The iced café slushie went viral online, and has been a keystone product for Edith’s collaboration with other brands and partners. A partnership with Nordstrom over the holidays included a special black-and-white cookie slushie along with a frozen hot chocolate slushie. “We do a lot of playful stuff,” Ms. Heller says. “We’re turning everything into a slushie this summer.”
As her business turns three this year, Ms. Heller says she and her team of 20 are ready to really start growing. Plans are in the works for two more Edith’s outposts in New York City. When asked if expansion plans might include Canada, she says: “Hopefully one day!” She’s had a lot of requests for an Edith’s in Toronto.
With this growth, Ms. Heller has found herself leaning on what she learned at Queen’s. “I wasn’t in the business school ... but I think you can take away so much more than what’s in the four walls of your classroom,” she says. Now that she’s building a team around her with people from diverse backgrounds, many of whom are trying Jewish food for the first time, she looks back to her undergrad and time on the volleyball court. She lists the lessons she remembers from that time: how to communicate, how to work under pressure, how to focus on a common goal, “and how to use the metric system!” she laughs. “I think so much of what has helped me find success today, I learned at Queen’s.”
Last year, Ms. Heller was at the wedding of one of her best friends from Queen’s and recounted making kugel for the bride during their undergrad. “I was the first Jewish person she’d ever met,” Ms. Heller says to set the scene. She spent the day walking downtown and collecting the ingredients needed for Edith’s kugel recipe and toiling in the residence kitchen. Kugel is a sweet casserole made with pasta, cottage cheese, sour cream, butter, sugar, and raisins, baked like a lasagna, with a cornflake topping. She recalls her friend’s extreme confusion as she took a bite and asked if she was being served sugary pasta. Ms. Heller had grown up eating kugel her whole life and had never had to explain it to someone else.
“It’s those kinds of experiences that ultimately culminated to create Edith’s,” Ms. Heller says, emphasizing that her goal is to tell stories through food in an approachable way. “In a way that people can easily digest,” she winks.
Talk of the Town
When Edith’s first popped up in Brooklyn, the buzz quickly followed – it was no surprise that word of mouth spread on the ground and online. Edith’s slushies and sandwiches have appeared in countless posts across social media, and several “where to eat” lists for the region. Beyond the hype online, Edith’s has received an impressive amount of press.
New York Times: “The schnecken at Edith’s, a Jewish deli in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, gleam with sugary glaze or drip with buttery icing, depending on the day. Sometimes the coiled pastries, named after the German word for snail, ooze globs of blueberry-sumac jam or shed honey-walnut crumbles. Once, ube (a purple yam from the Philippines) was added to the batter; the schnecken emerged from the oven with vivid lilac streaks. After Elyssa Heller, the 33-year-old owner of Edith’s, announces each new flavor on Instagram, ‘they sell out in, like, 15 minutes.’ she says. But two years ago, when she opened her restaurant, Heller hesitated to put the word ‘schnecken’ on her menu, thinking the name’s unfamiliarity might scare off customers. Should they instead be called sticky buns? Sweet rolls? Ultimately, she chose to call the schnecken schnecken. Preserving the culinary language that her Ashkenazi ancestors have employed for generations ‘is important when using food as a vehicle for storytelling,’ she says. ‘People will come in and say, ‘Why is it called that?’ And then we can start a conversation.’”
The New Yorker: Edith’s “offers what you might call your great-great-grandmother’s bagels – hand-rolled but also twisted, as in Old World Poland. They’re as personal to Heller as Strausman’s are to him: boiled in water flavored with honey instead of malt, they refer also to Montreal bagels (Heller went to college in Canada), and are made with flour milled from heirloom grains grown in Illinois, her home state. Edith was Heller’s great-aunt, who once ran a deli in Brooklyn, and whose archive of recipes, many scrawled on paper plates or napkins, inspired some of the pop-up’s dishes, including the smoked-trout salad, served on a bagel with house-cultured cream cheese, sliced radish, and trout roe.”
Times of Israel: “House-smoked fish platters. Plates of malawach, the Yemeni flatbread. A labneh parfait. And for Passover, ‘milk and honey’ slushies and matzah brie with bitter herb salad. Since opening up as a pop-up shop during 2020, Edith’s Eatery and Grocery in Williamsburg has embraced Jewish food from all over the Diaspora. The brainchild of Chicago-born Elyssa Heller, the store and restaurant is a celebration of Jewish cuisine outside of the narrow lanes of traditional Ashkenazi or familiar Israeli menus.”
Brooklyn: “The showstopper at Edith’s is the house fish plate, adorned with some good slippery smoked salmon, a tangle of arctic char, and slices of an extraordinary pickled mackerel that’s been lightly torched right before serving. This makes for a lovely feast for two. A Middle Eastern breakfast with eggs and funky merguez, a big chopped salad, and a labneh yogurt parfait studded with fruits and chickpea granola round out the offerings.”
Haute Living: “Edith’s founder, Elyssa Heller, combined her research of global Jewish cuisine with recipes from her great-aunt Edith, who ran a Brooklyn deli back in the ’50s, to create the next generation of comfort food. Among the standout offerings is the BEC&L, a redefined bacon, egg, and cheese ensemble featuring sharp American cheese, a latke with a satisfying crunch, and a side of special sauce. The Edith, a namesake sandwich, offers a fresh take on the Reuben, boasting 16-day house-smoked pastrami, sauerkraut, Emmental cheese, and a special sauce nestled between slices of seeded rye. The Iced Café Slushie has also made an appearance, a crowd favorite that fuses cold brew with oat milk and tahini for an unconventional coffee experience.
Noshing at Edith's
In launching Edith’s offerings with bagels, Ms. Heller was looking to tackle the most challenging item. New Yorkers have opinions about their bagels. “I knew it was the hardest thing to start with, and it would take me the longest to figure out,” she says. The bagels have since proven so popular that the sandwich counter cannot keep up with the volume; they’re now manufactured to Ms. Heller’s specifications by a collaborator.
Since the pop-up days, the menu has grown along with the business. Be sure to try the classics, and don’t miss out on the rest of the menu of Jewish staples with an Edith’s twist.
Bagel Specialties
The everything bagel at Edith’s is an homage to Ms. Heller’s Chicago upbringing. The spice blend mimics all the flavours of a Chicago-style hotdog, with celery salt and a sport-pepper kick added to the regular mix. Get your bagel with a schmear of cream cheese, or opt for one of the specialty egg sandwiches like the LEO (lox, egg, and onion): smoked salmon, caramelized onion and chives, and cream cheese.
Malawach Breakfast Wraps
Served on malawach – a flaky and crispy Yemeni flatbread – with a Portuguese-style chicken sausage, cheesy scrambled eggs, pickled Fresno chili peppers, herbs, and zingy harissa mayo, the Sephardi Wrap takes inspiration from Jews who fled Spain during the Inquisition and hid by working as butchers and in various trades in neighbouring Portugal – since they didn’t butcher pork, they adapted by using chicken.
Vegetarian options
For veggie lovers, the Scottsdale Wrap has avocado, cheesy scrambled eggs, bits of crispy latkes, and herbaceous zhug, a bright green Middle Eastern condiment. The Chickpea Crunch Wrap tucks crunchy spiced chickpeas in with creamy avocado, marinated kale and carrot salad, and sumac-pickled onions, all rolled up in lavash and seared on the flat-top. It’s served with za’atar ranch for dipping.
Deli Sandwiches
The Edith is the sandwich counter’s eponymous sandwich, a twist on the quintessential Reuben, with 16-day house-smoked pastrami, kraut, Emmental cheese, and Edith’s special sauce on rye. The Mushreuben is the veggie version with house-smoked wild mushrooms subbing in for the pastrami. The Chopped Cheese also features the house-smoked pastrami and is Edith’s take on the bodega standard, with lettuce, tomato, and sharp American cheese on a garlicky-seeded hoagie roll. For a nostalgic offering, house-made strawberry sumac jam, peanut butter, and peanut maize puffs make up the PB&J, served on toasted challah.
For Noshing
Latkes are made fresh daily, or try crispy cheesy totkes: Edith’s regular square latkes cut down into bite-sized tots, covered in sharp Aleppo cheese sauce. Of course, deli pickle spears are always on offer.
Desserts
For sweet treats, good luck choosing between a salted chocolate-chip cookie or a tahini blondie. Wash everything down with Edith’s famous iced café slushie: cold brew, tahini, oat milk, and simple syrup. Ms. Heller took inspiration from the Tim Hortons iced capp, and calls the slushie her love letter to Canada.
