Fischer Brothers & Leslie

Profile

Established in 1949, this family-owned Upper West Sider is a star among the city's glatt kosher butchers. Locals and out-of-towners alike call on Fischer Bros. & Leslie for top quality fresh chickens, house-aged prime beef, and prepared dishes made daily on premises. Patriarch Leslie Niederman, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, came to work for the Fischer brothers a year after the shop opened and took over the business entirely after the last Fischer brother passed away in 1970. ("I've only been working here fifty-five years," he shrugs.) Now his son, Steve, and son-in-law, Paul Whitman, have been helping him run the shop for over two decades. The chaos that ensues during the Passover season, when hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of brisket, raw and cooked, are ferried out of the shop, is a testament to its position as one of Manhattan's top kosher butchers. The humble interior—discolored linoleum, fluorescent lighting overhead, and several refrigerated cases—do little to distract from "the goods." Standout items include the unctuous barbecued chicken with its impossibly crispy skin and the well-marbled braised short ribs—the butcher's pride. — Gabriella Gershenson