This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.
If someone told you to...meet them outside a chiropractic clinic...duck down a set of concrete stairs...enter through a door that leads to the basement of said chiropractic clinic...bring cash...to get some sausage...you might call them crazy. So please, get it over with. Call me crazy. Because that’s exactly what I want you to do. I want you to go to Streecha, one of Manhattan's great treasures and the Ukrainian Village’s most unexpected spot for excellent grilled sausage and stewed cabbage.
The lighting in the long basement room is harsh and fluorescent. The table cloths are vinyl. The silverware is plastic. The TV is usually turned to an Eastern European news network. And if you go after the Ukrainian church down the street ends its service, there will be a line. And that’s only part of what makes Streecha wonderful.
Volunteer chef Dmytro Kovalenko—who came to New York six years ago after fleeing the violence in his home country of Ukraine—doesn’t charge more than seven bucks for anything on the menu, and it’s all cooked and served by his all-volunteer staff. On offer are staples like potato-stuffed varenyky, borscht, and rose jam doughnuts, and daily specials like shredded cabbage and pork salad, fried potato pancakes, and wheat berries with poppy seeds and honey. But the holy grail is the kovbasa, a creamy on the inside, charred and snappy on the outside pork sausage that’s made around the corner at the East Village Meat Market, with almost jammy cabbage accompanied by a sliced sandwich bread and a packet of spicy mustard. A single bite will revive or inspire any soul in any state. It’s salty, fatty, stick-to-your-bones good.
So grab your cash, watch your head on the stairs, and come meet me under the chiropractic clinic.
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