Elbow Bread on the Lower East Side turns out old-school Jewish baked goods with a modern twist

On the Lower East Side, in a neighborhood that was once the home to hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants to America, a buzzy new bakery is turning out old-school Jewish breads and baked goods with a modern twist.

After months of anticipation, Zoë Kanan — who’s been called “a baker’s baker” by New York Magazine — opened Elbow Bread in late October at the corner of Ludlow and Division Streets. There, backed by her partners Eric Finkelstein and Matt Ross, the founders of the popular Flatiron Jewish luncheonette S&P and Court Street Grocers, Kanan turns out delicacies like bialys, rugelach and challah — made with a croissant dough.

In a recent interview at the bakery, Kanan said that she and her partners drew inspiration from the downtown neighborhood. “There aren’t many Jewish bakeries here anymore,” Kanan, 34, said. “I saw an opportunity to do something here, in a location with so much Jewish history, and bringing my own personal style to it, which borrows from a lot of different techniques and ingredients. I love the classics and tradition is important, but what I find myself thinking about is ways to reinterpret.”

At Elbow Bread, these reinterpretations are vast and creative: There’s the challah honey bun — part croissant, part challah, Kanan describes it as “our sweetest ooey, gooey item.” There’s also a danish made with sourdough and filled with coconut cream — an unusual choice for a pastry typically filled with cheese or fruit — and a caraway rye palmier, a crisp, buttery French pastry shaped like an elephant’s ear that she makes with rye flour and caraway seeds, two ingredients often used in Eastern European baked goods.

Kanan, who lives in the East Village and grew up in Houston, spent most of her early childhood as a competitive figure skater. By the time she was a teen, however, she knew she wanted to be a baker. Her maternal grandmother, Helen Luntz — who moved to Houston from New York when Kanan was born — loved to bake classic Jewish cakes and cookies, like mandel bread, honey cake and apple cake. Growing up, Kanan said she connected to her Jewish roots watching and learning from her.

“Today, they are my connection to her,” Kanan said of her grandmother, who died in 2017. About the bakery, she said, “She would be so happy.”

In 2009, when she was 18, Kanan moved to New York to study pastry at what was then the French Culinary Institute. Since then, she’s worked under respected bakers at Milk Bar, Mile End Delicatessen and at Sadelle’s, known for its Jewish-inflected food, which is where Kanan learned the art of pretzel and bagel making. More recently, in 2021, she worked with Mendl’s Delicatessen in Mexico City, consulting on recipes for bagels, challah, rugelach and babka.

In 2018, Kanan was cited by New York Times restaurant reviewer Pete Wells as being very “good at her job” as a baker for the Gramercy restaurant Simon & the Whale; the following year she was named an Eater Young Gun for being a promising culinary talent. During the pandemic, she received lots of attention for her Zoe’s Doughies, a pop-up series at which she served “sometimes donuts, sometimes bagels,” and where she pioneered inventive, squiggle-shaped donuts served threaded on a stick. (Kanan said she plans to sell them at Elbow Bakery over Hanukkah, which this year begins on Dec. 25, along with more classically shaped donuts filled with house-made jam, as well as a fried cookie in the shape of a Star of David).

Despite her rapidly growing reputation, Elbow Bread marks the first time that Kanan has her very own bakery — something she said came to pass through a combination of serendipity and resolve.

“I was going to S&P Lunch a lot and the owners saw that I was sharing about it on Instagram and tagging them,” Kanan said. “I was thinking of reaching out to them, and they reached out to me and asked if I wanted to open my own place.”

As it happens, Finkelstein and Ross had been thinking about opening a bakery for a long time. They were fans of Kanan, and they heard that 1 Ludlow St., formerly the site of Mel the Baker, was available.

“We knew Zoe from pop-ups and the places she had worked before, and we had tasted her food,” Finkelstein said. “I had had a doughnut. We followed her on social media and we really liked what she was doing, stylistically.”

After they met in August 2023, the three of them — Finkelstein, Ross and Kanan — visited the Ludlow Street space and liked it.

“The exterior of the space looked classic, and we like things with character,” Finkelstein said. “Half a block down Ludlow is the address that my great-grandfather moved to when he moved to this country from Europe, and when you look out of our shop you can see The Forward building. Another great-grandfather of mine worked there. There’s a lot of meaning in that.”

As for the bakery’s name, when Kanan began experimenting with recipes in the small space, she had told a friend that the shop’s shape isn’t square — rather, it protrudes, like an elbow. The word resonated with Kanan and her partners, and not just because of the shape of the room.

“When you are baking, and put your arm in the dough, it can sink in up to your elbow,” Kanan added.

Since Elbow Bread’s opening, Kanan has filled her cases with a wide variety of reimagined classics, and some new pastry ideas — including her sweet potato pretzels, formed to evoke two arms twisted in a hug, which have quickly turned iconic.

“It is my most photographed item,” Kanan said, adding that the pretzel, along with her challah honey bun, made of a laminated dough, are her biggest sellers.

Elbow’s sandwich offerings include a spinach egg kugel, an homage to her grandmother, and a buttered roll slathered with salted butter, something she considers “a very New York breakfast item.” She also makes a schmaltz scallion knot, a roll filled with scallions sauteed in chicken fat which is then brushed on the dough before baking — a nod to nearby Chinatown, as well as to the onion pockets from Ratner’s, a now defunct Jewish restaurant on the Lower East Side. (Unlike Ratner’s, Elbow Bread is not kosher.)

Not every item Kanan sells has Jewish roots — her gluten-free oat brownie comes to mind — but Kanan considers Elbow Bread a Jewish business because of the culture she has created there.

“We are a small team,” she said. “This is a small budget project, so we have to be resourceful about our overall approach. The scrappiness of it is a Jewish component.”