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French Bistro Goes Kosher, A 1st for Park Slope

Park Slope has not been home to a kosher restaurant, well, ever. That changed when owners of a popular authentic French Bistro decided to make a change. Along with a new name, a French chef and Kosher certification, Chagall reopened earlier this week.

The restaurant, formerly known as ‘Belleville’, is now called Chagall. According to the owners Dan and Sonia Halimi the inspiration for the new name comes from the Jewish Russian artist Marc Chagall, who upon leaving Russian settled in the Belleville neighborhood in Paris, which is also Dan’s birthplace and neighborhood where he grew up.

Originally from France the Halimi’s were not always restaurateurs, Dan made a living in real estate while Sonia worked as a journalist. Talking to CrownHeights.info Sonia said her husband has history with working in restaurants, and they had heard about this place called ‘Belleville’ which was up for sale.

Interested, they made the trip to New York and they immediately ‘fell in love’ with the place. “we felt [that] it was so authentic and Parisian and something happened, the charm, I don’t know, the bug bit” said Sonia. “We decided to jump and just leave everything we have and just come and take this restaurant over.”

Both traditionally observant Jews, it was strange for Dan and Sonia to have this restaurant in which they could not eat. Not sure what they had in mind for the future of the establishment, their executive chef indicated that he wanted to make a change. Taking this as a sign they shut down the restaurant and made the switch.

The restaurant closed on the 18th of February and wanting to give the place a new look, they painted, Kashered, renovated the bathrooms and added a netilas yadayim sink, changed the name, hired an authentic French chef. All this in just two short weeks.

Boasting a new menu created by chef Jean-Claude Teulade, a veteran of the famed French restaurant La Côte Basque. For now Sonia says that they are operating on a reduced menu so that the chef can ‘get used’ to the new menu and they will expand as they get more comfortable.

The restaurant reopened this past Thursday, February 28th, and has been welcoming customers who have found out about them by word of mouth alone. Tuesday night the restaurant saw over 40 customers based on just word of mouth.

Chagall serves beef, poultry and fish and is  under the supervision of OK Kosher.

Chagall
330 5th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215

718-832-9777

Mon-Thu: 5:00pm to 10:30pm, Sun: 10:30am to 3:30pm and 5:00pm to 10:30pm

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42 Comments

    • Hidden Text

      “Chagall serves beef, poultry and fish and is under the supervision of OK Kosher.”

    • Milhouse

      It’s meat, under the OK. But it’s not true that there’s never been a kosher restaurant in Park Slope. There was a pizza shop for about a year, but it was very poorly run, nobody knew about it, and closed down, and there hasn’t been anything since.

    • Milhouse

      Um, what part of “Chagall serves beef, poultry and fish and is under the supervision of OK Kosher” did you not understand? Or did you not bother to read the article before asking questions?

    • moshe

      for others who didn’t read the article, it is fish & meat, OK hechsher

      Chagall was from a lubavitcher family I think, but his parents eventually sent him to a russian school.

  • would love to see menu

    To #1 . So you skipped the article and went straight to pics huh?? Poltury OK spvs.

  • dovid

    dont you read…are you from ot….the article stated its a meat/poultry/fish under the ok supervision…jeess…

  • declasse' intellectual

    #1. In the article it stated that it served fish, poultry and beef under gthe supervision of the OK
    It would have been nice if we could seen a photo of the menuy to peak our interest.

  • HELLO # 1 !!!

    Chagall serves beef, poultry and fish and is under the supervision of OK Kosher.

  • To Chanchi...

    It really is not such a long article to read through…..

    “Chagall serves beef, poultry and fish and is under the supervision of OK Kosher.”

    I do wish there was an IQ test before posting comments….

  • sande;s ???

    nobody remembers a place called Sandels about 25 years ago in park slope – a dairy resteraunt with waffles????

  • artical says

    Chagall serves beef, poultry and fish and is under the supervision of OK Kosher.

    • Milhouse

      Call the restaurant and ask the mashgiach. Isn’t that what you do everywhere, if you care about this?

  • Happy customer

    My husband and I went to Chagall’s last night and had a beautiful time! The hostess (Sonia) was so kind and gracious, she came to our table to ask if everything was ok and if we needed any extra service, and always with a SMILE!
    We started off with the special of the night–celery root pureed soup with toasted almonds and apple. Their presentation was definitely something to write home about…the eye eats before the mouth, right? ;)
    My husband had the steak, and I wish I had recorded his reaction to his first bite! It was cooked to perfection, juicy, and a robust flavor.
    I had the roasted salmon served over a bed of grilled spinach and onions. It was HEAVEN! The salmon was crunchy on the outside and buttery on the inside-and I was so satisfied with the portion that we didn’t need any extras or sides.

    The mood and atmosphere is very French, welcoming and inviting. Having the walls covered in artistic cafe themed mirrors, paintings from Chagall, and candles lit throughout the restaurant makes it a very romantic date night :)

    I give this place 2 thumbs up and wish them great success!

  • But will they serve sushi??

    It seems like just about every kosher food establishment has to serve sushi regardless of the cuisine (Yes, I’ll have a corn muffin, latte, and a dragon roll”)….hopefully this will be the exception….Last time I checked sushi wasn’t considered French. :)

  • declasse' intellectual

    Like clothes, electronics, cars- food too has its ups, downs and fads. Not so long ago, there was not a real thing for sushi, and I would not expect in a French type of resturant to have sushi served. Fish and vegtables yes ins different rench style where provincal or otherwise.
    My thought is that a food establishement has to serve sushi, then I wonder about the rest of the food.

  • Sushi Coke and Fries

    #25

    If you want sushi you could eat at mendi’s in CH. This is for people who need something EXTRA in life.

  • No sandels, yes Pizza

    Sandels was not in PS – it was in Flatbush.
    Yes, CH’s did know about the eccentric Pizza place – we actually even ate there.
    Good luck to this knew place – looks really nice.

  • unknown chef

    By far the best place to eat is still PARDES! THE FOOD IS AMAMZING AND PRESENTATION IS AMAMAZING AND JUST PERFECT

  • Amazing

    Food was amazing and not expensive at all! The owners are so sweat. The chocolate dessert was especilly delicous!
    Very Happy!

  • French

    Its a frech style restuarant. Expect french style foods. Everything i had was great!

  • The Slope

    what about Olgas on Smith? place was pretty good, wasnt ran well. they couldve made a killing off biz in downtown brooklyn

    • Milhouse

      Olga’s was very good, but it was in Carroll Gardens, not Park Slope.

  • perfection

    comment 33 you went to oholei torah for sure , cannot spell , sweet, delicious, it is really sad all the losers in that so called yeshiva,

  • working class jew

    Haven’t been there yet but have met the owners. They are lovely people. As this is Park Slope, it will undoubtedly be pricey.

  • chaya and reuvain stoll

    We went tonight and the food was delicious and the service was outstanding. We will IYH be back. Thank you.